18 November

HA SCHULT PRESENTS WERTGIGANT IN BERLIN

Schinkelplatz in Berlin - only until 19 November 2021

HA SCHULT AND HIS BERLIN

 Wertgigant from HA Schult

©Ansgar M. van Treeck

"Repairing instead of throwing away"

On Wednesday, 17 November 2021, the artist HA Schult presented his artwork "Der Wertgigant" on Schinkelplatz in Berlin. The sculpture is six metres high, weighs three tonnes and consists entirely of discarded electronic waste - old laptops, refrigerators, mobile phones, washing machines and much more. The statue is an expression of the enormous environmental problem: the gigantic sculpture represents the electronic waste that German households produce in 72 seconds. Within only 20 hours, an army of 1,000 valuable giants is thus created.

HA Schult, a lifelong activist and campaigner against environmental destruction and overconsumption, grew up in Berlin and feels a strong connection to the city.

The art project is made possible by the company Wertgarantie SE. Together with artist HA Schult, Wertgarantie wants to get involved in the fight against electronic waste. The motto is: repair instead of throwing away.

HA SCHULT AND HIS BERLIN

© Adam Vradenburg

Born in 1939 on the dining room table of his grandparents, Fritz and Anna Schult, née Piotrowski, in August-Bebel-Straße 3 in Parchim, Hans-Jürgen Schult grew up in the ruins of Berlin. His father Otto Schult was an energy engineer, first with Hitler, then with the SED, and rebuilt the gas and waterworks in Leipzig, Dresden, Erfurt, Rostock, Schwerin and Güstrow in the service of the East Zone government. Little Hans-Jürgen experienced these cities in smoking ruins from the back of his father's service Mercedes. 

His first private teacher was Auguste Meder in a rubble flat in Lichterfelde. The journey there usually took two hours. From a villa in Waldesruh near Mahlsdorf by bicycle to the tram. Hooked up the bike in front of the Waldgaststätte, took the tram to Köpenick S-Bahn station. From there by S-Bahn to Friedrichstraße station. By bus 77/78 to Lichterfelde, every school day there and back to Waldesruh to his dachshund Waldi. 

It was enormously privileged in those days. Otto Schult had his office in one of the few houses that remained standing on Friedrichstraße. Hans-Jürgen could drive a paternoster there with his friends, and Dad got one of the first new VW Beetles that Eduard Winter delivered. The driver said, "That's not your dad's car, it's the people's car." Everything that was not available in those days was available in so-called "Intelligenzlerpaketen": Western cigarettes, French cognac, Scottish whiskey, American jeans.

Then, in 1952, off to West Berlin. Sublet, pawnshop, picking up cigarette butts. First flat in the West. Steglitz, Bergstrasse, corner house, above the pharmacy, opposite Kopania. Heese grammar school around the corner. Two hundred metres to school, from the Quarta. In the cinema outside the tunnel: "High Noon" with Ingrid Bergmann and Gary Cooper. 

Otherwise for days on end in the 'Flokinos' at the Titania Palast, Checkpoint Charlie and Bundesplatz. 50 pfennigs for three films in a row. The heroes Humprhey Bogart, Clark Gable, John Ford, Ava Gardner, Henry Fonda, Lauren Bacall. The money came from picking flowers in the ruins and selling them at the front door for 10 pfennigs a bunch. 

Sundays in the Botanical Garden, boat trips on the Lietzensee, sledging from Monte Klamotte, car races under the radio tower on the Avus, with its spectacular steep curve from which Richard von Frankenberg flew. Now, not until 2021, the grandstand in front of it will be demolished. 

Mid-60s: back again. 

Caretaker, Manteuffelstraße 1 in Kreuzberg. Car washer at Hallesches Ufer. Night shift at Osram. Hours in front of a tea, in the early "Paris Bar". 

Early 70s: friendships with Ben Wargin, Eberhard Roters and Werner Düttmann, later Rainer Hildebrandt and Dieter Honisch. 

After the Wall: flat in Sophie-Charlotten-Strasse at Lietzensee. 

Today: always there. 

1974 "Biokinetic Phases on the Outskirts of the City" Opening of the Permanent Representation of the FRG in Chauseestraße, Günter Gaus 

1982 "Berlin Tableau" at "Art becomes Material" National Gallery Berlin, Dieter Honisch 

1985 "Art in the Federal Republic of Germany" National Gallery Berlin, Dieter Honisch 

1985 "New York is Berlin" Mauermuseum-Haus am Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC Klaus-Rüdiger Landowsky, Rainer Hildebrandt, Thomas Messer 

1991 "Fetish Car" Kunstverein Friedrichstadt, Berlin-Mitte 

1994 "War and Peace" Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin Times Square, New York City; Schlossplatz, St. Petersburg Rainer Hildebrandt, Thomas Messer, Vladimir Putin, Alexander Borowski 

2001 "Love Letters Building" Old Post Office Klaus Zumwinkel, Gert Schukies 

2015 "Trash People" Schinkelplatz 3 Uwe Schmitz, Axel Schultes 

2016 "Preussen goes Europe" Werderscher Markt Uwe Schmitz, Sigmar Gabriel, Rafael Moneo 

2021 "Wertgigant goes Berlin" Schinkelplatz Patrick Döring, Konrad Lehmann 

HA SCHULT

Born in 1939 in Parchim/Germany HA Schult grew up in the ruins of Berlin. From 1958 to 1961 he studied at the Academy of Art in Düsseldorf. 1962 – 1978 living in Munich, 1978 – 1980 living and working in Cologne, 1980 – 1986 living and working in New York. 1986 establishing the HA Schult- Museum für Aktionskunst in Essen. 1986 – 1991 living between “Rhine-Ruhr-City” and NYC. 1991 – 1992 in Berlin. 1992 moving the 

HA Schult-Museum from Essen to Cologne. 2009 Founder Director of ÖkoGlobe Institute, Duisburg - Essen University. HA Schult creates his projects with Elke Koska, the muse, and Anna Zlotovskaya, the violinist. 

In the sixties he coins phrases such as “Macher” and “Biokinetic”.
Since then the social fauna of cities and landscapes are in the focus of his work, like Venice (“Venezia Vive”, 1976), NewYork (“Crash”, 1977, “Trash City”, “Now”, 1983), Berlin (“Die Stadt”, 1982,“New York is Berlin”, 1985), Cologne (“Fetisch Auto”, 1989), St. Petersburg (“Marble Time”, “War and Peace”, 1994), Germany (“Aktion 20.000 km”, 1970). The Ruhrregion (“Ruhr-Tour”, 1978), and the Rhineland (“Rheingeist”, 1996). 

In 1998 he created the “Peace Storage Building” in the harbour of
Osnabrück, in 1999 his “Hotel Europe” at the Cologne-Bonn Autobahn.
In 2001 he realized the poetic “LoveLetters Building” in Berlin, 2003
“Trees for Peace” in Zollverein, Essen, 2010 and 2011 “Corona save the Beach Hotel”, Rome and Madrid, 2013 “Beaches Are Rebelling”, Barcelona, 2014 “Home-Heimat”, Siegburg, “WIR das Tier”, Munich, 2015 “Dialogue with Karl Marx“, Trier and “Ratinger Freiheit”, Düsseldorf. 

Since 1996 “Trash People”, Xanten, Paris, Moscow, Beijing, Cairo, Zermatt, Kilkenny, Gorleben, Brussels, Cologne, Graz, Rome, Barcelona, Washington, D.C., Siracuse, Fabriano, Telgte, Monschau, Arctic, Tel Aviv, and Luxembourg City. In progress are Munich and Lhasa,Tibet. 

2015 “Action Blue”, Paris, Luxembourg, Trier, Karlsruhe, Melsungen, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Warsaw, Vilnius, Riga, Tallinn, Saint Petersburg, Pavlovsk, Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Perm, Yekaterinburg, Omsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Listwjanka/Lake Baikal, Ulaanbaatar, Hohhot, Yueya Quan / Gobi Desert and Beijing. 

HA Schult was one of the first artists to deal with the ecological imbalance in his work. He is a major contributor to today`s new ecological awareness. 

His works were on show on all continents.They are in many public collecti- ons like Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NYC, MoMA, Museum of Modern Art, NYC, Roy Lichtenstein Foundation, NYC, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Tate Gallery, London, Centre Pompidou, Paris, State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg, Zendai Museum, Shanghai, Neue Galerie im Joanneum, Graz, ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, Museum Ludwig, Cologne,DHM,German Historical Museum, Berlin, Haus der Deutschen Geschichte. Museum of Contemporary History of Germany, 

Bonn, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, and in important private collections all over the world. He participated twice at the documenta, 1972 and 1977. 

Since 2007, the worldwide first award for an environmental conscious car industry, the ÖkoGlobe by HA Schult, is presented yearly. 

By G 18 November 2021