Коллекционер плакатов из Wiesbaden открыл новую выставку о плакатах эпохи Веймарской республики

Max Karagöz is a prominent poster collector based in Wiesbaden, Germany. He has built an extensive private collection of original German advertising, exhibition and political posters spanning from the late 19th-century Jugendstil period through the early 20th century and the Weimar Republic. He frequently collaborates with the Museum Wiesbaden to bring rare historical graphics to the public. Karagöz developed the new cabinet exhibition at the museum, which focuses on the time of the Weimar Republic up to the beginning of the Nazi era. He is interested in viewing history through political posters that serve as battle announcements. The Nazi takeover in 1933 prohibited the diversity of political voices on posters in public spaces. Collecting graphic design ephemera is a mixture of personal aesthetics and scholarly ambition. I am interested in the reasons behind collectors building collections. After meeting Karagöz on Zoom, he agreed to answer questions about his motivations and passions—and share his prize artifact, a poster cabinet from when Plakatstil was the dominant form. When did you begin to collect posters? I started to collect posters three to four years ago. I’ve had a passion for graphic design since I was a young student and also bought two to three Italian art deco advertising posters in my 20s, but they were cheap reproductions that cost $30 and the frame cost $300. It really hit me with “Ludwig Hohlwein” and his “Wiesbaden” posters. After that, I really started to collect posters. You seem to collect German work from the turn of the century Plakatstil period. Who are the major artists—known and unknown—in your holdings? That is correct. My favorites are Ludwig Hohlwein, Lucian Bernhard, Julius Klinger, Hans Rudi Erdt, Ernst Deutsch and all these many artists around 1910, creating their “Berlin and Munich Stil.” There are also other artists that are unknown or not so famous. I have a large collection of “Darmstadt exhibition posters.” Some nice Jugendstil posters from Hans Christiansen, Friedrich Wilhelm Kleukens, Paul Bürck, but also the not-so-known Carl Gunschmann, who did the 1920 exhibition poster “Deutscher Expressionismus – Darmstadt Mathildenhöhe.” Tell me about your advocacy. You’ve mounted exhibitions—what did they focus on? My intentions are that these forgotten names are not forgotten anymore. Many basics we know in graphic design or poster design were invented back at that time. We had three poster exhibitions in the past two years and the first exhibition, “Poster Women. Women Poster,” was held here in Germany. The focus was to show how advertising worked back at that time and still does. We showed how women figures were created and used by male artists on posters to advertise (“sex sells”). And we showed “Poster Women,” female artists, those few back at that time, that had to pass many challenges as a woman and still be so successful by creating a public poster. About 5% of all those German posters were created by the few females. And almost none of them are known today. This exhibition was also partly supported by a German project called “UN/SEEN.” Prof. Eisele, one of the founders of that project, was involved in this poster exhibition. The other two exhibitions were about political posters from 1918–1933 and 1949–1991, showing how political propaganda worked in the past and how similar the same tools still work. What is your most personally valuable discovery? I believe there are many. And it’s not about the money or how valuable a poster is in dollars. It’s about the story. How I found out about it, how it came into my collection, how much I had to fight for it. There are some of these, like, Ludwig Hohlwein’s first “Frühling in Wiesbaden” poster from 1926. But of course, I have posters that are much more valuable for the art history and for others, like Lucian Bernhard’s first “Sachplakat – Stiller Shoes” or “Priester Matches.” One story about what is “valuable” … I have a poster from my town Wiesbaden, nothing important and nothing that is monetarily valuable. But I was not able to find it again when I was looking for it. I thought it ended up in the paper trash with all the empty tubes that I have thrown away. I was really sad for days and would not mind that much losing another “valuable” poster than this one. To me, this was really important and valuable. It was the only piece in that condition and the story of how I got it was important to me. I luckily found it again. It was covered by other posters. What else do you collect? Well, everything that these posters advertise for. If it shows a cigarette tin on it and I have the opportunity to buy it, I am buying it. I have a large collection of other paper ephemera, like travel brochures, postcards, etc. I also really like the black-and-white Leica photos of Dr. Paul Wolff. What do you hope will be your final goal as a collector? Is it scholarship or pleasure? As mentioned previously, I would like to give these forgotten names a “face.” I started retrieving historical portrait photos from many of these artists and started to upload them into Wikipedia and link them with their articles. My “final goal” would be a Plakatfreunde Museum, where the “Verein der Plakatfreunde,” one of the first (and sometimes only) sources of German graphic design has an audience. Where I could permanently show all these posters to the public and where these posters could get a permanent home. And yes, pleasure and doing it for the “purpose” drives me. I have a strong emotional connection to this previous “society” and admire what the founder of it, Dr. Hans Sachs, did more than 100 years ago. I think his name and work should be brought more to the public’s attention. They all deserve that.