Under the name ‘Mülheimer Freiheit’ artist’s Hans Peter Adamski, Peter Bömmels, Walter Dahn, Jiří Georg Dokoupil, Gerard Kever and Gerhard Naschberger exhibited together for the first time in November 1980 at the Paul Maenz Gallery in Cologne and soon thereafter internationally.

The way they purposefully questioned the pseudo-individual “creative” artist ego in an unpathetic and humorous way ensures them a special status in the “Hunger nach Bildern” [hunger for images] to this day.

Clearly more and different than just “Wilde Malerei” [wild painting] in their approach ‘Mülheimer Freiheit’ was an announcement that was to shape the art scene in Europe for an entire decade.

The book, with many illustrations of works, offers for the first time an overview of the group’s history, made vivid by numerous previously unpublished photographs by Benjamin Katz.

This is the English edition of this title.

Published on occasion of the exhibition ‘Painting Tumult 1979-1988 / Made in Cologne’, 13 Nov 2022–16 Apr 2023, Center of Contemporary Art in Toruń, Poland.

Co-published with the Tumult Foundation.