Hans-Peter Feldmann

Theo Lingen (2011) the title of both the exhibition and the only work on show was an attempt at an archival portrait. Showing countless documents in one small basement room, Hans-Peter Feldmann created a panorama of the life of actor Theo Lingen (190378) with all its contradictions. Born Franz Theodor Schmitz in Hanover, Lingen was far more than the face of stilted West German post-war comedies like the school farce Die Lümmel von der ersten Bank (The Rascals from the Front Bench, 196872) as he is known in Germanys collective media memory. He was in great demand as a character actor on stage and screen, especially during the late Weimar period something hardly anyone remembers today. And under the Nazis, Lingens readiness to act as a harmless entertainer in the Goebbels-controlled film industry was a bid to use his popularity to protect his so-called half-Jewish wife Marianne and her family from deportation. Lingen made a pact with the devil, selling not his soul but his status as a popular star.

Far from emphasizing these various facets of Lingens persona, or even interpretatively relating them to each other, Feldmann simply showed them together as one complete installation: vitrines filled with collectible cards from cigarette packets, autographed cards and a range of star paraphernalia, plus Lingens own private photo albums; a television documentary about his largely unknown private life; a collection of almost unbearable popular songs, including Der Theodor im Fussballtor (Theodor in the Football Goal), which casts Lingen as a heroic goalkeeper; and a long series of pictures and Post-Itlike notes in neon shades with quotations and text fragments by journalists, colleagues, family members and Lingen himself. This material covered the walls and hung from a washing line zigzagging across the room: Lingen makes deprecatory remarks about the shape of Adolf Hitlers head, laments on his life between tragedy and comedy and looks forward to his stage roles. We see him in a monks habit and in a nightshirt, arm in arm with fellow comedian Hans Moser, or in Fritz Langs M Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder (M, 1931) with Gustaf Gründgens. With seeming carelessness, Feldmann scattered copies of the same 1929 photograph of Lingen on the floor and on top of several vitrines. The photograph shows a dreamy young man looking expectantly out of a window awaiting what the future might bring.

In formal terms, the deliberately cheap look of the exhibition was most striking: like a commemorative room but in the guise of a childrens birthday party or a school auditorium. Feldmann used an educational model and at the same time made it appear ridiculous. On the one hand, there was clearly an element of rehabilitating Lingen, paying tribute to him and contributing to a history of West German humour. On the other hand, the show triggered a reflection on the power of mass media images specifically why Lingen is perceived in such highly selective terms as a purely stuffy comedian. The exhibition played its formal qualities against itself. And, with good reason, it could not be tied down to one meaning, just as Lingens life cannot be reduced to his best-known role.
Translated by Nicholas Grindell