Gerry Schum

Gerhard Alexander "Gerry" Schum (15 September 1938 – 23 March 1973) was a German cameraman, filmmaker and video artist. The TV-exhibitions he produced for his Fernsehgalerie Gerry Schum around 1970 were among the first art programs without any explanation or commentary to be broadcast on television.
== Life and career ==
After studying medicine in 1958, Schum enrolled at the Deutsches Institut für Film und Fernsehen (DIFF) in Munich from 1961 to 1963. During this time, he attended and organized underground film festivals. In 1966 he studied directing at the newly founded Film und Fernsehakademie in Berlin, which he left a year later. Between 1967 and 1969, Schum created two documentaries for Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) III, of which the first one, about the sixth Art Biennale in San Marino, aired on August 24, 1967. The second one, Konsumkunst-Kunstkonsum, was broadcast on October 17 the next year. This film, created in collaboration with art historian Hannah Weitemeier and artist Bernhard Höke, dealt with industrially produced art.
In January 1968, Schum married Weitemeier in New York, where he also created the film New York. While shooting Konsumkunst-Kunstkonsum in the summer, he met many artists, art dealers and collectors from Cologne and Düsseldorf, among whom his future wife and collaboration partner Ursula Wevers. In September 1968, Schum moved from Berlin to Haan near Düsseldorf, where he married Wevers in July the next year.
Between 1969 and 1970 he established Fernsehgalerie Gerry Schum, a 'TV-gallery' which exhibited video artworks on television. The first Fernsehausstellung ('TV-exhibition') called Land Art aired on April 15 on Sender Freies Berlin. Later that year, Schum produced Keith Arnatt's project Self-Burial, which was broadcast from 11 to 18 October on WDR III. This work consisted of a series of nine photographs from which one was showed between programs every day for nine days. Around this time, Schum moved into a mobile home with a built-in production studio since he would often work in the field. In December, the Fernsehgalerie exhibited TV as a Fireplace by Jan Dibbets, a three minute film. It was broadcast by WDR III every evening for seven days on the newly introduced color television. Schum's second Fernsehausstellung, called Identifications, aired in 1970.
In 1971, Schum quit making TV-exhibitions and founded his own gallery dedicated to video art, located at Ratingerstrasse 37 in Düsseldorf. At Videogalerie Schum he produced, exhibited, and sold videotapes. The following year, museum director Paul Vogt consulted him in setting up a video department at Museum Folkwang|Folkwang Museum in Essen. Schum was intended to become the first curator for video art at the museum. He died by suicide in 1973 at the age of 34 in his mobile home on the banks of the Rhine in Düsseldorf.
== Fernsehausstellung I (1969) and II (1970) ==
Filming for the first TV-exhibition called Land Art started in January 1969, and the 38-minute program aired on April 15 that year on Sender Freies Berlin. This exhibition featured original works by 8 different artists that were created to be shown on television. All works were created and filmed in nature, without any spoken explanation. Michel Heizer withdrew from the Fernsehgalerie after the first broadcast.
Works included in Fernsehausstellung I: Land Art (1969)
No.	Artist 	Title 	Filming Date and Location 	Technical Aspects
1 	Richard Long 	Walking A Straight 10 Mile Line, Forward and Back Shooting Every Half Mile	20 January 1969, Dartmoor, United Kingdom 	16 mm film, color, sound, 6'03"
2 	Barry Flanagan 	Hole in the Sea 	February 1969, Scheveningen, the Netherlands 	16 mm film, color (opening and closing credits b/w), sound, 3'44"
3 	Dennis Oppenheim	Time Track 	17 March 1969, 2.00 PM U.S.A., 3.00 PM Canada, Fort Kent, border between United States and Canada	16 mm film, b/w, sound, 2'07"
4 	Robert Smithson 	Fossil Quarry Mirror with Four Mirror Displacements 	March 1969, Cayuga Lake region, United States 	16 mm film, b/w, sound, 3'12"
5 	Marinus Boezem 	Sand Fountain 	January 1969, Camargue, France 	16 mm film, b/w, sound, 4'11"
6 	Jan Dibbets 	12 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective 	1969, unspecified beach in the Netherlands 	16 mm film, b/w, sound, 7'32"
7 	Walter De Maria 	Two Lines Three Circles on the Desert 	March 1969, Mojave Desert, United States 	16 mm film, b/w, sound, 4'46"
8 	Michael Heizer 	Coyote 	March 1969, Coyote Dry Lake, United States 	16 mm film, color, sound, 4'20"
Schum's second Fernsehausstellung, Identifications, was broadcast by Südwestfunk Baden-Baden on 30 November 1970. Twenty artists were represented in this 50-minute production. Only Richard Serra and Keith Sonnier's films were pre-existing works, the others were produced by Schum himself for this TV-exhibition. Daniel Buren and Hamish Fulton withdrew from the project after the first broadcast.
Works included in Fernsehausstellung II: Identifications (1970)
No.	Artist 	Title 	Technical Aspects
1 	Joseph Beuys 	Filz TV (1970) 	b/w, sound, 11'25"
2 	Reiner Ruthenbeck 	Excerpt from Papier (1970) 	b/w, sound, 3'40"
3 	Klaus Rinke 	Untitled (1970) 	b/w, silent, 50"
4 	Ulrich Rückriem 	Untitled (1970) 	b/w, sound, 55"
5 	Daniel Buren 	Untitled (1970) 	b/w, silent, 0'49"
6 	Hamish Fulton 	Untitled (1970) 	b/w, silent, 0'30"
7 	Gilbert & George 	Excerpt from The Nature of our Looking (1970) 	b/w, sound, 1'25"
8 	Stanley Brouwn 	One Step (1970) 	b/w, sound, 1'57"
9 	Ger van Elk 	The Well Shaven Cactus (1970) 	b/w, sound, 1'25"
10 	Giovanni Anselmo 	Torstone (1970) 	b/w, sound, 1'10"
11 	Alighiero Boetti 	Untitled (1970) 	b/w, sound, 2'05"
12 	Pier Paolo Calzolari	Untitled (1970) 	b/w, sound, 2'12"
13 	Gino De Dominicis 	Tentativo di volo (1970) 	b/w, sound, 1'55"
14 	Mario Merz 	Excerpt from Lumaca (1970) 	b/w, sound, 1'20"
15 	Gilberto Zorio 	Untitled (1970) 	b/w, silent, 1'
16 	Gary Kuehn 	Untitled (1970) 	b/w, sound, 1'25"
17 	Keith Sonnier 	Positive-Negative (1970) 	b/w, silent, 2'19"
18 	Richard Serra 	Hand Catching Lead (1968) 	b/w, silent, 2'54"
19 	Franz Erhard Walther	Untitled (1970) 	b/w, sound, 2'05"
20 	Lawrence Weiner 	To the Sea, on the Sea, from the Sea, at the Sea, Bordering the Sea (1970)	b/w, sound, 50"
Schum intended to create a third Fernsehausstellung called Artscapes, but the program did not get approved by any broadcasters and was therefore never realized.
== Exhibitions (selection) ==
* 1969: Prospect 69, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany
* 1979: Gerry Schum. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam|Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
** 1980: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen|Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
** 1980: Kölnische Kunstverein, Cologne, Germany
** 1980: Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst, Ghent, Belgium
** 1980-1981: Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada
** 1980-1981: A Space Gallery, Toronto, Canada
* 1981: Gerry Schum: Video, Museum of Modern Art, New York, United States
* 1988: Stationen der Moderne, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
* 2003/04: Fernsehgalerie Gerry Schum / Videogalerie Schum, Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany
Category:German people
Category:1938 births
Category:1973 deaths