A core of twelve
The open group mixed older and younger artists; some knew each other from the Academy and the student movement. Helmut Sturm, Heimrad Prem and Hans Matthäus Bachmayer brought in the experience of SPUR, WIR and GEFLECHT.
The core members were:
- Hans Matthäus Bachmayer
- Renate Bachmayer
- Dietrich Bartscht
- Jutta von Busse
- Heiko Herrmann
- Thomas Niggl
- Heimrad Prem
- Armin Saub
- Ursula Strauch-Sachs
- Dieter Strauch
- Helmut Sturm
- Heinz Weld
Painting like free jazz
They worked in a studio on Herzogstrasse, later on Barerstrasse, and on working stays at Drakabygget in Sweden at the invitation of Jørgen Nash and Lis Zwick. They sought to work with musicians, poets and craftspeople.
Their references ran from Asger Jorn and Abstract Expressionism to Emilio Vedova, Venetian painting and the Bavarian Baroque. From 1979 some members took painting into space, building "Bildraumobjekte" (picture-space objects) from bulky waste.
After 1982
The open group lasted until 1982. Some members carried on in smaller formations, among them Armin Saub and Heinz Weld as the Bildsegler. In 2012 Galerie van de Loo Projekte in Munich showed the collective.
