The interview was conducted by Leonie Baumann and Gabi Kellmann, 30 June 2009, and was first published as „Ulrich Roloff-Momin: I Was Impressed By the Productive Chaos“, in: NGBK – 40 Years, 1969-2009, Berlin 2009, S. 47-55.

Leonie Baumann (LB): Why did you become a member of NGBK?

Ulrich Roloff-Momin (URM): It was quite simple, I knew Hajo Diehl [Hans-Jürgen (editor’s note)]. Hajo was one of the Berlin critical realists; we became friends because his wife and mine shared the same doctor’s office. He was a member - a founding member even - of NGBK and asked to come along one day. I then participated in a KOA meeting, since these were all public, and the chaos there appealed to me. I didn’t see through all the relations of the various K-groups: who with whom, and why, and why not this way, but that. I was impressed by this productive chaos.

LB: Which K-groups were they?

URM: There was the SEW, the KPD/ML, the KPDIAO or whatever. Who else was there? The Trotskyists, so actually everybody who was politically active at the time. ¹

LB: Do you remember the atmosphere in the coordinating committee meetings?

URM: They were medium-sized events. A lot of artists met there, for example the Berlin realists, Arwed Gorella, who later left Berlin, Wolfgang Petrick was there quite often, sometimes also Peter Sorge. I saw Gernot Bubenik there. Yes, as I said, this managed chaos, that impressed me.

LB: After you had become a member, did you want to participate in realising exhibitions or projects, or did you prefer to work in cultural politics?

URM: I wanted to engage in cultural politics and work in this association because I enjoyed going there. It was always unusual, especially in the general meetings, because people were allowed to join on the same evening on which projects were negotiated. The result was that these meetings never started on time, thirty to forty-five minutes late was nothing unusual, because outside there were people queuing who wanted to join the association. Why? In order to push their project through. The NGBK was a highly political association, because all groups wanted to realise their ideas there, and get a share of the lottery money. That was absolutely legitimate. After all, almost 1 million deutschmarks were available. In order to push their project through, applicants had to build majorities, that is to say, mobilise their supporters. So sometimes 150 or 200 people joined in one evening, they all got their membership cards, had to be registered, and so on. Only then did the general meeting start.

LB: When you were elected to the board, were there any rival candidates? Was it a controversial position, or did the board exert little or no influence over these processes anyway?

URM: NGBK’s statutes were trend-setting at the time. That was total democracy, grass-roots democracy. That was already expressed by the fact that you could go to the general meeting and vote for a project, even if you had joined only half an hour ago. Therefore the board had merely a legal status to fulfil, the legal requirements for an association. Legally, somebody must wear the hat, be responsible, and therefore a board consisting of three people was elected: a president, a secretary, and a treasurer, and thus the legal requirements were satisfied. Apart from that, I didn’t get the impression that the steering committee did in any way influence the style, if you will.

LB: But in my opinion you exercised your office as president not just as a legal figurehead, you also used your position to help shape the work of NGBK, also in terms of content.

URM: That is right. As treasurer, I worked with Bernd Weyergraf and later with Valdis Āboliņš, and was able to observe quite a bit. NGBK’s first president, Otto Mertens, was a grand old-school gentleman who didn’t interfere and presided. When new elections took place after Otto Mertens’ death, there was no rival candidate. Not for treasurer either, because nobody wanted to be responsible to the lotto accounts. Lotto is quite rightly finicky about use of monies, proof of expenditures and so on.

You suddenly grow into a role: I had always been at the KOA meetings; the general meeting was usually chaired by me, and when somebody wanted the floor at a certain point, I already knew what would be said. That always followed the same pattern, the content varied, but basically the point was to push through projects, and formal questions were important, because they had to be observed or used in order to form majorities. In that, conflicts would suddenly arise, and the expectation was that these conflicts would be solved in one way or another. I never imposed, but when there were conflicts, I tried to solve them.

LB: What kind of conflicts were they?

URM: Well, the main conflict was about Mythos Berlin with Eberhard Knödler-Bunte on the one side and Sabine Weißler, Dieter Ruckhaberle and others on the other. A heavy argument ensued, because this project was so unbelievably expensive. That quite rightly raised the question whether the NGBK as a pluralist association that realised all sorts of different projects, should now use up almost its entire annual budget for one single project. The association would then have been pretty much finished. Eberhard Knödler-Bunte had gone about this very cleverly. The project had as it were grown into NGBK. It had been instituted by the general meeting, and then it needed to be confirmed and so on, and suddenly we had reached a point when there was obviously no going back, and all this money was applied for. Then there was more resistance, a) because of the content – the critics at the time argued it was an affirmative project, and b) against granting such a lot of money. This conflict almost broke NGBK.

There were nighttime meetings, we argued for hours and I had to try to reach a compromise without endangering NGBK and its financial support.

In some people’s view, these compromises were certainly rotten compromises. But the exhibition was put on, with a pared-down budget. For the opening, I wore old clothes on purpose, because I assumed that at the cake or salad buffet, a brawl would break out.

That was the main conflict, and apart from that, there were always arguments about the content of exhibitions. Once projects were instituted, they had to be coordinated in the KOA with all other projects. And of course, as is always the case when people come together over years like that, the old arch-enemies go at each other constantly, but just to have a go and not because of what is being discussed, and that obstructed the work. All these arguments had to be solved one way or another.

LB: Did you position yourself in these struggles, or sympathise with one group?

URM: No, afterwards people accused me of that. After I had solved the Mythos Berlin stuff with the association, I was accused of being part of the SEW group. Absolute nonsense! If I had belonged to one group, the problem wouldn’t have been solvable, because the others wouldn’t have taken me seriously anymore. Be that as it may, I could live with the accusation then, and I can live with it today, because the most important thing is: NGBK still exists.

LB: I read that there were 1800 members in 1977, but in 1990 it was only 776, less than today. What happened?

URM: I don’t know for sure, but in the heyday of the political exhibitions, Hajo Diehl and all the artists were still part of it. Many left later. That didn’t leave me cold. I was then told by Hajo Diehl and others: the NGBK doesn’t do anything for us. I responded by saying that the NGBK as a Kunstverein has perhaps a different mission. Nonetheless, they left, one by one. The majority of members were those who wanted to realise projects and were artists.

By the way, when I was in Mexico I was reminded of one of the highly political exhibitions at the time. Of course I went to look at the muralists and I was also in Trotsky’s house, were he was murdered. And suddenly I remembered this huge row at NGBK about the exhibition on Mexican murals. It was about whether or not David Alfaro Siqueiros could be part of it. The debates went on for hours. I myself had no clue what this was actually about, because the man was clearly one of the muralists. They had all beat about the bush. Now, in February 2009, I finally understood what others had obviously known for a long time. I was so naïve! Siqueiros was a communist and thus was supposedly one of those who had planned Trotsky’s assassination, and the Trotskyists naturally didn’t want to show Siqueiros in an exhibition with the others. That was the background, finally I got it! It was often about these political questions behind the art, and this is why people were asked to join the association.

When the time of the highly political exhibitions was over, many left the association again, even though the membership fee was not much. But NGBK’s attractiveness for the public is not diminished, I think. It was a different time when associations like this were founded. Nobody today would draft such radically democratic statutes. At the time, at the beginning of the students’ movement, it was absolutely necessary and right. Now the founding fathers have slowly outgrown it, and today it is more about form and content, less about the political struggles and embroilments behind that. And this is why today’s members are perhaps real Kunstverein members.

LB: NGBK has 850 members today, and its membership is on average much younger than that of other Kunstvereine, but there is high fluctuation. Many join as students and then leave when they leave Berlin. Some, however, leave immediately if their project is not realised. Did you observe that in your time, too?

URM: There were certainly people who joined as lone fighters or three or four people outside of any political group who tried to get a project accepted at a general meeting. They left, frustrated, when they were voted down. But I saw much more often that many, after having failed at first, tried again next time. They were persistent, and that was of course right. If you want to push something through, you must be persistent. Perhaps today people don’t fight so tenaciously for their projects, but deal with the whole thing more calmly than thirty or forty years ago. I don’t know.

LB: There is great interest in NGBK’s programme, many would like to work in the curatorial field and use the practice at NGBK to professionalize and qualify themselves, also for their later career.

URM: Actually, that was true then, too. I think that is legitimate. We have two Kunstvereine here, and the fight for money lasted into the 198os, because there was always somebody who came to NGBK and wanted to slash its funds. NBK only rarely had its budget cut, it had created its gallery which provided extra support, and all the bigwigs in the city were represented there. Everybody wanted to get their hands on the money, also to be able to show a project after graduating. NGBK had the advantage that it distinguished itself by the production process, as political as it was, because excellent exhibitions resulted from this. The concepts, too, the presentation, and the so-called didactics, which in the 1970s was so generally berated, have now become standard for exhibitions.

LB: Did you have arguments about appropriate remuneration? The members work more or less as volunteers, but there is so much work that we can’t really speak of appropriate payment. Is that a new discussion, or do you remember that too?

URM: We also had these discussions. Of course every time the budgets had to be negotiated and discussed in the general meetings: ‘Why do you need five research assistants, four or three would also be enough.’ I don’t know how it is today, but this debate was not so prominent then. But it is legitimate to say: ‘I’m doing a project, but I must also get some money for my work.’

LB: Do you still take notice of the exhibitions at NGBK?

URM: Unfortunately, I must admit that I don’t, that is terrible, absolutely awful!

LB: That means you remain a member out of a sense of loyalty?

URM: Yes, and I will be a member til the day I die!

LB: Today there are a lot more galleries, the large museums show contemporary art, quite unlike earlier times. Which role do you think do Kunstvereine have to play in this new situation?

URM: I don’t want to speak about Kunstvereine I don’t know, but NGBK has the mission to put on exhibitions that nobody else would do: unusual exhibitions. I see that when I get the invitations! Relatively unusual exhibitions take place there. A gallery can’t afford that sort of thing because it is a commercial enterprise and needs to earn money. NGBK doesn’t, thank goodness, depend on that because it receives lottery money. This mission and this need have not changed since the 1970s. The thrust or trajectory of individual exhibitions have changed, but there is still an absolute necessity to realise such projects.

LB: Do you think the early conflicts harmed the association?

URM: No, on the contrary. They do any harm at all. I think it is better to one argument too many than not enough arguments. Because only then do things get decided and matters become clear, even if afterwards sometimes rotten

compromises have to be made. You get closer to your self and to others when you argue about things that matter. In this respect, it didn’t harm the association.

I would like to commemorate Valdis Āboliņš. In my time, I worked with two long-term executive managers. One was Weyergraf, whom I liked and with whom I enjoyed working. But the outstanding personality was Valdis Āboliņš. It is a pity that he left us so early. He was a character in the sense that he had personality - I have never met somebody like him since. Amazing!

LB: He’s been dead twenty-five years now. Thank you for commemorating him.

Gabi Kellmann: Would you do anything differently if you could now once more decide about NGBK’s profile, do you have any regrets?

URM: No, not really. It was exhausting, because the association’s constitution is exhausting and required a lot of time, but it was a fulfilling time. Of course I was annoyed with people from time, wished they’d go to hell, but that’s how it is sometimes. In retrospect, I would say: all these ‘characters’ (in a positive sense) were necessary, they turned the NGBK into a pot in which you’d stir the usually same­-old-same-old, but in which everybody could cook his ‘work’ in his or her own way. These statutes had to be invented, that would be much more difficult today. I’m pleased that the appearance hasn’t been changed, this wonderful logo with these expanding arrows, designed by Bubenik. It is lovely that nobody came up with the idea to replace this logo, streamline it for marketing purposes.

LB: Today we sometimes miss these productive conflicts of old. It seems to me that many people are afraid to say anything negative about a proposal in the general meetings, as if they thought: ‘Then they’ll retaliate when we get to my proposal.’

URM: That is the general trend. The 1968ers don’t exist any more. Young people are no longer programmed for arguments and conflict; being insubordinate is difficult and requires courage, but today’s desire to fit in so much is something I lament. That was very different then. People went for each other’s throats in a way that I found myself thinking: ‘Where the hell am l?’ Dieter Ruckhaberle never minced words. Things really were quite stormy. In the end, almost everybody got what they wanted, and everybody continued working. Therefore I say: only conflict will move you forward.