Besides this "life's work", Brock possesses "nothing on earth". Even the living and bedrooms in Wuppertal are reportedly rented – "a philosophical insight". Bazon Brock, a student of Adorno, emeritus professor of aesthetics at the University of Wuppertal, art theorist, art mediator, cultural critic, self-proclaimed "generalist", "mover", "self-binding artist", takes stock. He talks for four hours, seemingly effortlessly, interrupted by only one longer pause. He does not get stuck, occasionally a former student helps jog his memory with a word, a year.
Four hours of world explanation from the Etruscans to today, from Europe in the 13th century to its imminent demise – what could be closer than imagining right now what "archaeological finds Chinese researchers will uncover in Europe in 80 years": droplet catchers for coffee pots, sausage skewers, men's sock holders, or nipple protectors. But not only China, the "Islamic world also forces us to consider what we will take to the grave when Europe disappears". So Brock collects "grave supplements for his generation" with the request that "everyone tidy up their living room".
Jürgen Johannes Hermann Brock was born on June 2, 1936, in Stolp/Pomerania, now Poland. His "foundational experience" is the war. Along with three siblings and their mother, the escape took place over the sea on the high seas, followed by internment in Denmark. Denmark was a school of life for Brock: "Only if one fights alone does one get through", so his realization, "and I got through." The Brocks settled in Schleswig-Holstein. The mother became ill, and the children grew up in foreign families. The refugee problem – that was also formative. The result of this outsider's life: from the age of 14, Brock lived "completely alone". His name change also occurred during school: "Bazon", from the Greek bazein (to chatter), the chatterer, a teacher named him that. His friend Hubert Burda had pinpointed Brock's speaking talent in his speech for his 60th birthday: "to whip the people".
After studying, Brock worked as a dramaturg in Darmstadt, Bern, and Lucerne, and in 1965 began his teaching career in the field of aesthetics, first in Hamburg, then in Vienna and Wuppertal. He invented the "visitor schools" at documenta in Kassel and carried out actions with artists called "happenings". A happening is an event, says Brock. With Joseph Beuys, it was much more: an event with epiphany, with appearance. With Beuys, Brock founded the "German Student Party" at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and carried out one of the most spectacular actions in Aachen on July 20, 1964. During the 24-hour happening in 1965 in Wuppertal, he stood on his head next to Beuys, who was crouching for hours on a small box next to a piece of fat.
That the then Minister of Science Johannes Rau expelled the art professor Joseph Beuys from the art academy does not prevent Bazon Brock from praising the later, recently deceased Federal President as "the only politician who convinced". As the founder of the University of Wuppertal, Rau ensured that some subjects such as mathematics, physics, and literary studies were excellently staffed. Of course, this also applied to the field of design: Rau brought Brock into this area in 1980. Every year, Brock completed over 100 events outside the university, "without a single travel expense report". And at the university, he did not let any lecture be canceled, nor did he stop working even from the operating table.
Only in the direct question-and-answer game does Brock not find it easy. Whether he sits in the heavy leather armchair or keeps getting up and pacing back and forth: He lectures. There is hardly any room for interjections. And when there are, they provide an opportunity for further sprawling explanations. Thus, the topics in the living room seminar are lined up: the "ghostly rule of fluctuation and economy"; the bankruptcy of a society without "humane design will"; a capitalism that comes along with self-created laws instead of a functioning legal system; managers who grotesquely lay off their workers and thereby lose their own customers; political correctness fanatics who defame any criticism of a failed integration and migration policy and thus also him, Bazon Brock.
For the media, he, Brock, is anyway the "embodied bogeyman". While he was still present in major newspapers and on television 20 years ago, he is no longer in demand today. There is also hardly any echo for Bazon Brock in other institutions – he suffers from that. But he remains what he has always been: left, humane, liberal. His motto is Carpe diem. Not a day goes by without writing a line and occasionally dreaming of etruscan smiles, recalling how in 1963 he walked down the hotel stairs with Monica Vitti at the film festival in Venice.
