Helmut Heißenbüttel: writing collecting broadcasting

The exhibition about Helmut Heißenbüttel (1921–1996), freelance author and editor of the Stuttgarter Rundfunk, contains material dating from the 1950s to the present day: Texts and radio plays, broadcasts from the »Radio-Essay« programme, portfolios in collaboration with artists and images and items and from Heißenbüttel’s collection.

writing
After his debut »Kombinationen« (Esslingen, 1954), author Helmut Heißenbüttel published a series of »textbooks«, for which he was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize in 1969. Many of Heißenbüttel’s texts are based on artistic principles such as fragment, collage, series and montage. He found the language material for this in books and radio programs, in vinyl record recordings or in everyday chatter on buses and trains.

collecting 
The heart of the exhibition is made up of artwork from Heißenbüttel’s collection, for which he composed »blurbs« and »occasional poems« and graphical folders, which were created in collaboration with Rupprecht Geiger, Reinhold Koehler and others. In Heißenbüttel’s large vinyl collection, there are recordings of such varied composers as John Cage, John Coltrane, Johnny Cash and Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, whose record sleeves form a »listening area« in the exhibition.

sending
At the Süddeutscher Rundfunk Stuttgart (now SWR), Heißenbüttel managed the »Radio-Essay« editorial department between 1959 and 1981. In a »broadcasting station«, examples from this program and some of Heißenbüttel’s audio plays, including the collage »Was sollen wir überhaupt senden?« (what should we actually send?) will be played.

Video documentary:

ZKM | Videostudio

Camera: Benedict Meyer, Martina Rotzal
Editing: Benedict Meyer, Christina Zartmann
Sound Recording: Anton Kossjanenko
Voice: Frenz Jordt
Music: Chillabyte, m0ozg