Emil Schult

Werner Emil Schult (born 10 October 1948 in Dessau, Germany) the son of a designer and machine constructors. Emil is a German painter, visual and sonic artist, poet and musician.

He is most famous for his collaborations with the electronic music band Kraftwerk. While studying with Dieter Rot, Joseph Beuys and Gerhard Richter at Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, he was invited to contribute to the band’s visual and musical ideas. In 1968 he joined the Düsseldorf Art Academy studying fine arts in the class of Deiter Rot with printmaking and later painting with Gerhard Richter and Joseph Beuys. His main sources of inspiration seems mainly to have been his teacher Dieter Rot and Dorothy Iannone .

From 1970 followed his first group exhibitions, among others in the gallery Rene Block, Berlin. In addition to publishing books with drawings and writings in his own publishing house, he also published documents in Beuys' class. In 1969, Schul had exhibitions in Berlin, Paris, Cologne and Reykjavik . He lived for six months in Reykjavik along with Rot and Iannone. His production besides painting consisted largely of books as he pressed up into smaller quantities, which he began publishing in the first year at the academy. The books contain comics, drawings, collages and poetry.

In the early 1970s he works on Joseph Beuys the Free International University. In 1973 Emil Schult finished his schooling at the art academy as a master student of Richter and Beuys.

This collaboration with founders Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleben led to Schult’s creating lyrics as well as graphic designs for their album covers (Ralf & Florian, Autobahn, Radioactivity, Trans Europe Express, and Computer World. and more) and creating images of the musical instruments and electronic sounds that were being crafted by the group for performances and recordings. He has created most of their sleeve designs since 1973. Together with Ralf and Florian, he has created the special world of images that Kraftwerk surround themselves with. He also co-wrote the lyrics to a number of Kraftwerk songs, including "Autobahn" (from the album of the same name), "Radio-Activity" (and all other songs on Radioactivity with lyrics), "The Hall Of Mirrors", "Trans-Europe Express", "The Model", "Computer Love", "Pocket Calculator" and "Techno Pop". For a short while around 1973, Schult also played guitar and violin in the group; this was to be short-lived, since Schult by his own admission is not quite good enough to be a professional musician, and since the group had started to develop its synth-based sound it no longer had any use for a guitarist or violinist.

Since 1991 he lives and works as a freelance artist and producer in Düsseldorf.

From 1995-2000 he began and completed the construction of the crypt under the Partika - Hall of Robert Schumann Musikhochschule, Düsseldorf. (Meditation room for students and church musicians). In 2000 he displayed paintings and sculptures for the entrance hall SIEMENS Venture Capital California.

In 1997 he released the 16 minute long single Elektronisches Mosaic with Lothar Manteuffel (who also plays with Karl Bartos band Electric Music.) As a musician, he has also played with the group Wally Badarou who released the album Words of a Mountain 1989

From 2001 he displayed his paintings and sculptures on the history of microelectronics "chips on History" on display at the Museum Nixdorf Forum and Science Park, Gelsenkirchen

Schult and his former bandmates Ralf Hütter and Karl Bartos are mentioned as co-writers of the Coldplay song "Talk" in the credits to their 2004 album X&Y. The song is built around the main riff of the Kraftwerk song "Computerliebe".

He also contributed to Kraftwerks recent MOMA performance from April 10–17, 2012.^[1]

In 2012, Schult was invited to be an artist in residence at the Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred (N.Y.) University. Since then, he has been a frequent visitor and lecturer at Alfred while creating new work at the Institute.^[2]

Quotes:

According to Wolfgang Flür he was, ‘a very self-conscious, good-looking lad with brown curls and soft, blue-grey eyes‘.

Schult’s work was perfect for Kraftwerk — enigmatic, economical, it was oddly blank, almost like a German version of Warhol. ‘He is our medium. He writes lyrics, takes care of the lights,‘ said Ralf in a 1976 interview.

‘When I met Emil, and when he showed his comics to me, I thought they looked like our music,‘ added Florian.

List of works

Books

• 1969 - Das war ein Gästebuch mill.
• 1969 - A Book Of Man. Connected Drawings.
• 1970 - A Book Of Man. Connected memories.
• 1974 - Gesichter, Visages, Köppe, Faces Capites, Heilabrot, Edition Hansjörg Mayer
• 1976 - Konzept-Education, (along with Peter Rech)
• 1986 - Spiele mit Kunst - Kunst-Spiele, (together with Heiner Müller, Peter Rech and Rech Notburga)
• 1999 - Test Pictures 1993

Single

• 1997 - Elektronisches Mosaic

References

External links

• Emil Schult's homepage, featuring reproductions of several of his paintings
• Emil Schult's homepage from Germany with Articles and Recently updated works
• Article on Electronic Beats: Emil Schult on Kraftwerk