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KOLUMBA :: Exhibitions :: 2019 Ulrich Tillmann
15 September 2019 to 31 August 2020
The Klaus Peter Schnüttger-Webs Museum
A project by Ulrich Tillmann
Ulrich Tillmann (Linnich 1951–2019 Pfäffikon) made his name as a photographer. From 1986 he worked as an expert in photographic techniques and art historian at the Museum Ludwig. That he was also an exceptionally enthusiastic collector is only known to a small circle. Inspired by Fluxus, Ulrich Tillmann invented the fictional character Klaus Peter Schnüttger-Webs in 1981 as »dreamer and world-changer«, whose interests ranged from the »Bauhaus to Zen Buddhism, from morphology to entomology, from acupuncture to philosophy« (UT). In 1986 Ulrich Tillmann founded the Klaus Peter Schnüttger-Webs Museum in Volkhoven, a suburb of Cologne, together with Bettina Gruber and Maria Vedder. It opened its doors at the same time as today’s Museum Ludwig but had to be closed down a day later due to the »enormous follow-up costs«. As director of this fictive (anti-) museum he developed, over the following 38 years, an institution with the most diverse departments devoted to the work of this (as yet) unknown universal genius. This long-term project did not follow an immanent logic in the main, but rather fed off external events on which Ulrich Tillmann commented in a humorous and subversive manner. The result was a lively archive compiled by an expert and artist with an eye for the poetry of the everyday, encompassing pieces found at flea markets juxtaposed with high quality items of photography from its early days. The Klaus Peter Schnüttger-Webs Museum is Ulrich Tillmann’s most personal artwork; it is intimately connected not only with his own biography but also with the art scene and cultural politics of Cologne.
Publication: Das Klaus Peter Schnüttger-Webs Museum. Ein Projekt von Ulrich Tillmann (Kolumba. Werkhefte und Bücher, Bd. 58) with texts by Barbara von Flüe and Friedemann Malsch and a dialogue with Bettina Gruber and Maria Vedder, 136pages, 210 x 275 mm (ISBN 978-3-9819975-1-4)
