Talberg's Neo-Fluxus Manifesto '95

Ruben Talberg

Who is Ruben Talberg anyway? Is he an uncomfortable social critic that some ignore? Is he an art performer who conveys himself as a total work of art? Or is he one of the most under-appreciated artists of international stature? When you visit his eponymic Talberg Museum, which seems to have fallen out of time - this year celebrating its 10th anniversary - you will meet a straight, youthfully dynamic Israeli-German with anything but streamlined views.

Talberg Museum not only celebrates its 10 years anniversary but simultaneously - as official partner - 1700 years of Jewish life in Germany, a grand festival under the auspices of Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the German president.

From the first eye contact on, Talberg seems to sense his counterpart’s high expectations. On a first walk through Talberg Museum the goods are delivered. The Museum, a former carpenter's shop with industrial windows and a hospitable bar, projects a bright aura of spaces which skillfully stage Talberg's colorful, expressive fold sculptures, his Manifolds.?

What one faces is no Pop Art, no protest art, no postmodernism and no anti-art. Talberg's bizarre, at times suggestive art walks a tightrope between form construction and deconstruction that simply cannot be pigeonholed. In the dance-like act between the outside of space and the inside of abstract Manifolds, also archaic ideas are expressed, which the artist knows from ancient advanced civilizations.

When explaining his art, Talberg quotes Nietzsche, who said that real success of an artist can only be measured by how far he was able to realize his artistic vision. And not by any fake rankings or shmankings”, he notes.

Talberg, an Israeli-Francophile, divides his life between Germany, Southern France and Israel.?

Social Critique

His social critique however, leaves nothing to be desired in terms of lucidity:?

"My art reflects the superficiality of an increasingly narcissistic society of bored Philistines where superficial pigeonholing predominates. The viewer of my Manifolds is thrown back on himself - and begins to suspect that on the go he has lost any political or social utopia, either due to frustration or overconsumption. What on the private level represented the apathy and passivity of citizens, rapidly developed on the public-state level into the tyranny of global capital and corruption right up to the top. Both levels are mutually dependent.

Whether art or capital market, in a society in which obedience cannot be enforced through open violence, market henchmen and self-appointed experts play the game of organized patronization and indoctrination.

As long as we don't fight the latent or manifest violence of hierarchies and institutions - including their depraved ideologies - we are part of the problem, not the solution.”

That’s a strong statement, made by Talberg 2013 but still up to date, he thinks.

Talberg Museum

Talberg, free thinker with a decathlete physique appreciates candor and feels quite comfortable with the location of his Museum: “It’s fine with me, as long as I can work here, also known as the Bronx of Frankfurt, which is full of stark contrasts, but frank."

When he was looking for suitable location, he found this kind of protected art space right at the north side - close to the harbor:?

"The foundation of Talberg Museum in 2011 was no secret operation. It was supported by many good people, like senior mayor Schneider and Karl-C. Schelzke, President of the Coalition of Hessian Cities and Communities as patron.

Later it became clear that the ruling class of museums, such as the alliance of “night of museums, Frankfurt", would refuse to recognize Talberg Museum as the new kid on the block. Talberg's big mistake was that he had dared not to ask anyone for permission to run his own independent Musée d’Artist - which by the way is only one of a few in Europe while the artist is still alive.

Talberg lets art history speak for itself: "That roughly corresponds to the situation in Paris 1863, when artists such as E. Manet, P. Cezanne, C. Pissarro were rejected by the official Paris Salon and then independently organized their famous “Salon des Refusés. Thus Talberg Museum functions as a kind of Salon des Refusés for my Manifolds. They are my babies.”

Manifolds

Talberg's art radiates its own magic: "I'm a kind of incurable romantic. That’s certainly because I was born in Heidelberg." He is also an alchemist, a Jewish mystic: "I create from nothing, a pile of straw, bones or other materials, what seems to others like some dreck." Hence - through mysterious transformations - Talberg creates some new, wondrous Manifolds as part of his "Opus Magnum".?

The upward-striving, intertwined or spiraling forms with multiple folds are based on a vision that Talberg had more than 30 years ago in Bellagio, Italy. "888, my production of Manifolds will be limited to this number during my lifetime. Why 888? It’s my lucky number.”

"In my studio, a twelve-stage alchemical process takes place sometimes over months, a kind of auto-rotation in which matter and energy migrate from Manifold to Manifold until I know what actually emerges. The sculptures develop a radiance and energy that potentiates itself."

If you look at the products of Talbergs hell’s kitchen - his works are owned by more than 200 art collectors worldwide - you can comprehend the energetic growth described. In contrast to the often biomorphic spatial structures, they show an intensely shimmering or glowing varnish skin, alternating with matt verdigris archaic-shaped bronze casts.

Talberg's brilliant tondo-reliefs play in an extra class of their own. According to Talberg, all this is part of "the transformation of opposites, aka Conversio Oppositorum: “Continuum and fraction, fusion and divergence, harmony and discord, from all one and from one all."

Talberg’s art essentially deals with cult & worship in the old classic sense. According to art theory Talberg founded Neo-Fluxus, which is based on his Neo-Fluxus manifesto 1995. The core idea originate in Heraclitus “pantha rhei - everything flows” and TAO, the philosophy of flow, which also hold true for his Manifolds.

The old Fluxus was known to be anti-commercially inclined. This is one of the reasons why Talberg shies away from super-commercial galleries, but welcomes all the more art connoisseurs and serious art collectors. Since some years demand clearly grows, so there exists a waiting list. Needless to say, Talberg Museum is definitely worth a visit. Visits by appointment only.

J. C.