Mary Bauermeister

Mary Hildegard Ruth Bauermeister (7 September 1934 – 2 March 2023) was a German artist who worked in sculpture, drawing, installation, performance, and music. Influenced by Fluxus artists and Nouveau Réalisme, her work addresses esoteric issues of how information is transferable through society. "I only followed an inner drive to express what was not yet there, in reality or thought", she said of her practice. "To make art was more a finding, searching process than a knowing." Beginning in the 1970s, her work concentrated on the themes surrounding New Age spirituality, specifically geomancy, the divine interpretation of lines on the ground.

Biography

Early life and artistic beginnings Mary Bauermeister was born in Frankfurt am Main, the second of five children, to Wolf Bauermeister, a professor of genetics and anthropology, and Laura (Renzi) Bauermeister, a singer. She spent her early childhood in Kiel, before moving to the suburbs of Cologne. During the Second World War, she and her brother Martin lived in the mountains near the border with Austria. In 1957 she met her future husband, the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. At her invitation, avant-garde poets, composers and visual artists such as Hans G. Helms, David Tudor, John Cage, Christo, George Maciunas, Wolf Vostell, George Brecht, and Nam June Paik organised unconventional concerts of the "newest music", readings, exhibits, and actions. These activities have been described as "comparatively non-hierarchical exchanges of information across national, disciplinary and age boundaries", contributing in that way to the character of the Fluxus movement which had been developing during the 1950s. The actions earned her the title Mutter der Fluxus-Bewegung (Mother of the Fluxux movement).

On 3 April 1967, in San Francisco, she married Stockhausen, with whom she had two children: Julika (born 22 January 1966) and Simon (born 5 June 1967). They were divorced in 1972. She had two younger daughters, Sofie (born July 1972, father David C. Johnson) and Esther (born 1974, father ). She used the knowledge she garnered from these studies for the planning of gardens, which she implemented for public and private clients throughout the world. after a serious illness over several months. In 2021, she received the , then a new award.

Exhibitions Source: 1964 "Mary Bauermeister – paintings and constructions" Galerie Bonino, Buenos Aires 1965 "Linsenkästen" Galerie Bonino, Buenos Aires 1967 "Linsenkästen" II Galerie Bonino, Buenos Aires 1972 First retrospective in Mittelrhein-Museum, Koblenz 1972 Galerie Arturo Schwarz in Mailand 1985 Participation in the International Crystallography Congress and presentation of her works 1986 Kölner Kunstverein 2004 Museum Ludwig in Cologne 2010 Wilhelm Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen