“It has the safest place in the whole building,” says Katja Strauss. The librarian talks about Bert Papenfuß, who became prominent as an underground poet. In 2013 he bequeathed a first collection of 300 books and magazines to the Academy of Arts the early death of the anarchist In 2023 there will be another 1,000 titles. Bert Papenfuß would have been 70 years old on January 11, 2026.
And there they stand, four floors down under “Berlin’s living room”, next to the torpedo-like bottles of the gas extinguishing system, which will flood the storage room with carbon dioxide in the event of a fire and close a heavy steel door, and are reminiscent of a frequent reader with broad interests and a large vocabulary. “This collection of books – and especially the numerous dedications – makes it very clear collegial and friendly contacts and networks read,” says librarian Synke Vollring, who will guide you through the collection with Katja Strauß.
Books are part of the story of their readers, sometimes they tell it with: “Krawarnewall”, an anthology about the writer Adolf Endler, who came to the GDR in 1955 with hope, but was disappointed and with the concept of “Prenzlauer-Berg Connection” The scene outlined by Papenfuß is still attributed to this day.
“Between anarchy and art – the library of the poet Bert Papenfuß”presentation and tour through the magazine. Academy of Arts Berlin, February 6th, 4 p.m.
Editor Gerrit-Jan Berendse derives the title “Krawarnewall”, with anarchy-A circled on the cover and spine, from a graffiti, circa 1989, on the corner of Dimitroffstrasse and Schönhauser Allee in East Berlin, an address more in keeping with Papenfuß’s taste than the Brandenburg Gate and Hotel Adlon. In the 1990s, when the lettering was whitewashed, Papenfuß said in the book of poems “hetze”: “You can’t make a state with me, at most a mess.” He should stay true to the sentence; he didn’t want to offend any animals with the addition.
Proven collaborator
In addition to Endler, you can find the books of Writer Elke Erbwhere Papenfuß was employed as a secretary so that the GDR’s anti-social paragraph did not apply. The former theater illuminator, who would later introduce himself as a literary illuminator, was skeptical about the right to be lazy. The fact that Bert Papenfuß was a proven collaborator is demonstrated by his artist books, as well as his magazine projects and music productions.
They can be found in the publicly accessible academy treasury, collected in large-format, black archive boxes made of acid-free cardboard. Created in collaboration with graphic artists and painters, they make the term underground, which the poet himself used, seem at least difficult. Not that Papenfuß was at a loss for a insult, but his affront was artful, multilingual and multidialectal; and the publications, most of which have been published in very small editions since the 1980s, are characterized by a daring, expressive beauty.
An example of this is “Spell on!” with drawings by the set designer Worm Winther and texts by the poet Tone Avenstroup and Bert Papenfuß himself. Winther and Avenstroup come from Norway, Papenfuß knew more about the north and the east than the west.
These books are also a tactile sensation: “From the First Things to the Last Things” contains lithographs by the visual artist and painter Ronald Lippok and texts and text graphics by Bert Papenfuß compiled in a wooden box. “Fog Level” with the Painter Cornelia Schimmele brings together watercolors and ink drawings on handmade paper. So that it doesn’t become too reverent, “Meditation” is written above a figure on the locus.
You can read more in Frank Willmann’s Bert Papenfuß biography, announced for autumn, with the working title “Grown on the crap of the GDR”. Before that, the artist book “It’s not the way it stays” with drawings by Klaus Theuerkauf will be published by Edition Rothahndruck. In one of the texts, Bert Papenfuß, who doubted peace and tranquility and who was driven to despair by the war of the rulers, recommends rebelliousness instead of the resilience that was propagated with all cylinders.
On February 6th, a presentation followed by a tour of the magazine in the AdK will provide exclusive insights into the inventory of artists’ books.