Interfunktionen. Nos. 1 - 12. [All published].

Cologne., 1968 - 1975.. 12 volumes. Original publisher's printed wrappers.. (29.5 x 21 cm; issues 9 & 10: 21 x 15 cm).. Complete set of the seminal magazine Interfunktionen. Twelve issues over seven years may not appear to be a particularly impressive output, but it is difficult to overemphasise the influence and significance of Interfunktionen during and after its brief existence. Dissenting from the new 'art-as-commodity' attitude expressed at Arnold Bode’s documenta 4, Interfunktionen magazine, edited by Fritz Heubach in Cologne, was an interdisciplinary effort among activist artists to promote European art and ideas without bowing to the era’s increasingly commercial trends. In the summer of 1968 the opening of Documenta 4 had come under public attack for a conventional, market-driven agenda that was felt to represent inadequately the art of the '60s. With the exception of some environments neither space nor money was available for new media: an event involving performance and sound art, long planned by Wolf Vostell, was cancelled. American Pop and Minimalist artists, hot tickets on the German art market, far outnumbered artists from any single European country, provoking critics to nickname the show Americana and to refer to New York City as a suburb of Kassel. Inextricably linked with the Joseph Beuys-era Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the LIDL Akademie, Interfunktionen boasted contributions and support from Jörg Immendorff, Sigmar Polke and Wolf Vostell. It published theory, criticism and artists’ projects, and facilitated a brand of European-American relations in art that had not quite existed or been explored before. Interfunktionen’s first issue was originally published in – by today’s standards – an impossibly small edition of 120 (later issues averaged a circulation of about a thousand, although issue 2 was produced in an edition of only 250, with issue 3 in an edition of 300). Sets of the magazine with the original edition of issue no.1 are exceedingly rare. This first number's main function was to articulate a reaction to documenta 4: the record of a performance action staged by a loose group of Interfunktionen members and supporters at the press conference and the reproduction of pieces banned at the exhibition. The first issue is a collection of some seventy-five pages, made of assorted papers printed, typed, or handwritten, including loose enclosures, foldouts, and collages of news clippings with scrawled citations. In his introduction, Heubach warns that the restrictive policies of art institutions like Documenta impede the free, experimental production of art. Detailed records describing the canceled multimedia event and a general collection of news coverage follow. Midway through the issue things heat up. Honey-Blind Action documents performances staged by artists during the opening press conference of Documenta: Jorg Immendorff jumped across tables, waved a stick topped with the silhouette of a cute polar bear painted light blue, and smeared honey over the microphones, while his wife, Chris Reinecke, hugged and kissed everyone, including the alarmed curator Bode. Vostell poured a bag of change in front of the curators as a symbolic donation, and Heubach, among others, raised a banner reading, Prof. Bode, we, the blind, thank you for this pretty show. Newspaper articles are interspersed with an absurd correspondence between Reinecke and the city of Kassel, which officially fined her 27.35DM for the removal of honey stains from tables and carpets. Matching the city's bureaucratese, her formal reply declined responsibility and requested that the bill be sent to her husband instead at the same address. The Manifestoes section gathers fliers that greeted visitors at the exhibition opening. Interfunktionen became mired in scandal under its second editor, Benjamin Buchloh, in 1975. In what would be its final issue (and only his second) Buchloh published Anselm Kiefer’s controversial Occupations, wherein the artist is photographed giving the Nazi salute in front of monuments throughout Europe. Marcel Broodthaers, once a keen supporter and contributor to the magazine, led the charge (which included Fritz Heubach) that caused an almost total withdrawal of funding from the review. A leading outlet for European art not seen elsewhere, Interfunktionen was ambitious beyond compare in scope and non-design. This set of Interfunktionen has the second issue in deluxe, limited to 50 copies, with signed contributions by Maurizio Kagel, Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell and Jorg Immendorff. [Ref. Jörg Schellmann - Joseph Beuys. The Multiples, no. 9]. In addition issue no.1, inscribed by Heubach to his fellow psychologist Wilhelm Salber on the contents page, has the Wolf Vostell 'Multimedia Environment' postcard signed by the artist, as well as Gábor Altorjay’s 'Rettet die Documenta' postcard. KP Brehmer's banned documenta IV postage stamp artwork is also stamp-signed on the supporting sheet.