in ‘interfunktionen’
[in 'interfunktionen']
- 1969–1971
- interfunktionen issues 2–7, containing multiples by Beuys
Cologne-based F. W. Heubach founded the art and theory magazine interfunktionen in 1968. He used this publication as a platform for artists who held no affinity for Pop Art, kinetic art, environmental art and minimalism, which had dominated that year’s documenta 4 exhibition.1 Published at irregular intervals over the next seven years, the twelve issues of the magazine served as vessels for distributing information and as artworks in their own right. With a changing roster of authors and editors, interfunktionen became an influential voice in the West German art world.2 Fifty to sixty copies of each issue’s print run were special editions, containing contributions by invited artists.
Asked to contribute to issues two through seven of interfunktionen, Beuys used the magazine to publish photographs of his recent performances, print texts on topics like the ideal art academy, or reproduce existing drawings and other artworks. By adding stamps, inscriptions, and hand-collaged elements to this material, he transformed it into a series of multiples.
For the backdrop to the magazine’s founding, see Gloria Moure, Behind the facts: Interfunktionen, 1968-1975 (Barcelona: Ediciones Polígrafa, 2004), 37. ↩
On the role of interfunktionen in the West German art world of the late 1960s and early 1970s, see Christine Mehring, ‘Continental Schrift: The Magazine Interfunktionen,’ in Artforum (May 2004). ↩
© H. Koyupinar, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen
Photos 2–7© Mario Gastinger, Photographics, Munich