Reiner Ruthenbeck

Reiner Ruthenbeck

Ruthenbeck

Mönchengladbach, Germany: Städtisches Museum, 1972

20.2 x 16.5 x 1.5 cm.

Edition of 440 numbered copies

An exhibition catalogue as printed cardboard box containing a title card, two cards printed on both sides featuring introductory text by Hans van der Grinten and curator Johannes Cladders, a 45rpm vinyl record, an accordion fold featuring 32 black and white offset photographs of sirens on rooftops. 

The work is part of a series of boxed exhibition catalogues published by the  Städtisches Museum between the late sixties and early eighties. Other artists in the series include Joseph Beuys, George Brecht & Robert Filliou, Marcel Broodthaers, Daniel Buren, Joel Fisher, Hanne Darboven, Jasper Johns, Piero Manzoni, Lawrence Weiner and others. 

The record, a single-sided 7” disk titled Dachskulptur,  consists of air raid sounds. Because of it’s inclusion, the publication has been featured in three seminal works on Artists’ Records: Ursula Block's Broken Music, Germano Celant's The Record as Artwork, and Guy Schraenen's Vinyl Records: Records and Covers by Artists.

"Ruthenbeck’s record Dachskulptur has sounds that are more physical, collecting, with photographic

documentation, the technological wailing of Düsseldorf factory hooters. Their drawn-out blasts resound through the air to great acoustic effect, giving a tactile dimension to sound which, as a sculptor, Ruthenbeck sees as complementing his objects in rubber and steel."

- Germano Celant, The Record as Artwork