A Man on Four Boats
Ulrich Krempel 1996

Someone who lives on the water, on the lower reaches of a tidal river, moving up and down with every ebb and flow — works according to a measure that is all his own. Max Couper has been living in London on the River Thames for many years. This is where his artworks have come into being, and where he has built his habitat — rocked by the turns of the tide, shaken by the bow waves of the river buses, and closely bound up with the way of life of people who live on and by the rivet Couper lives in the luxury of the only uncongested traffic route in London, enjoying the relative tranquility of a vast expanse of water which is forever changing. The skyline of Old Chelsea is his daily companion; the bridges upstream and downstream illuminate the water and the night. The walks along the riverbank take people to their places of work and home again — they stand at corners, furtively smoking cigarettes away from their desks in the ugly office blocks that line the river. Max Couper is a kind of seaman, artist and London character rolled into one — a man who has been living in and off London's dockland longer than many of those who, during the eighties, tried to make a lot of money with Post Modern architecture for yuppies.

Couper Barge Roads, Low Tide 1994.

In 1980 I organised an exhibition of Max Couper's installations at the Kunsthalle in Dusseldorf. Bus Stop was the title of one of these pieces; compact, and with an undeniably metropolitan character, it consisted of continuous slide projections and sound recording of an English bus stop. It was accompanied by a silent work which related to the architectural character of large shipping containers, stacked next to, and on top of one another. Even from this early work, one could make an intelligent guess where his artwork was coming from: The river, the docks, the terminals of international trade — the mobility which is completely independent of road and rail — and the possibility of using the tides as a means of getting to one's destination and back again with a minimum of effort. Indeed it was a work which already pointed to Couper's artistic future; living and working on the river, the sea, and being on the move.

History of The World in Four Parts Four reliefs of rusted through steel track & machine parts in plaster, with inscribed drawings 1994, each 35 x 92 x 5cm. View of two of the reliefs.

It was on days sitting on the deck of his small tugboat, steering his way up the Thames, that the idea of going on a longer journey developed. The idea was a simple extension of his day-to-day life. With his work as an artist so closely bound up with his mobile way of living on the water, why not continue this somewhere else, even if only for periods at a time. Max Couper's travels to the mainland of Europe, his exploration of the old waterways — making his way to certain places where friends and audience await his artistic delivery — all this makes sense when you realise how long the artist has been docked up in London cultivating his ideas and preparing himself; creating the things that could be messages for the whole of Europe that wants to listen to art.

For Max Couper, the journey is part and parcel of his artwork. Like his work of over ten years in London which, in its own way, has aimed at the creation of an art and life that are one and the same. One that is based on a life and reality that is totally different from that of the average person who chooses to opt-out. The boats that are berthed in Max Couper's dock, the workshops and the studios, anticipate an artistic process that includes the act of moving — the route to the other place. Max Couper's artworks are not static, but inhabit a fluent medium that seeks constant change. Within this medium they are mobile, on the move, and not tied to any specific place. In this, they are readily detachable from the borders on which the artist exists — the borders of the unpleasant but familiar world of business; the borders of the never quite flourishing docks; the borders of a place which, as a livable environment, is now gradually changing for the better.

Travel, past, origin, medium — these are the intellectual cornerstones of Couper's journey, and the make-up of The Plot. It is the artist Max Couper who calls to mind the recently finished age of steel in Europe; the medium that has made the countries of central and northern Europe rich. He then goes back in time, to an older experience of travelling in Europe; to the vestiges of the trading routes, to the much forgotten canals that still traverse Europe from North to South and East to West. And he takes us even further back, to the fossil fuels that have created our incredible mobility and wealth, with travel and transport affordable for all; petroleum, the essential medium of our mobility and warmth, and also the basis of pollution and global exploitation.

And, finally, he confronts us with the most distant past, with the very beginning, with what moves about sluggishly in the beds of rivers, with what provides the essential nutrients for animal and vegetable life in our fertile coastal regions; to mud, the primaeval slime, the very stuff of life. Max Couper has been travelling for a long time in his imaginary charts; this summer he crossed the English Channel. The real journey was much more difficult, with all the logistical problems involved. And even before he left, with the endless red tape that has to be dealt with in this small Europe, in order to get by boat from London to Antwerp, from Antwerp to Rotterdam, from Rotterdam to Duisburg, and from Duisburg to Hanover. Undreamed-of problems, on routes that are as old as they are remote, that come back to our consciousness through Couper's travels. New ideas for this old Europe of ours, in places which at some time or another will belong to the Europe of us all: A man on four boats, an artist with a concept for a European event.

Dr Ulrich Krempel, 1996
Director of the Sprengel Museum Hannover

Prof. Dr. Ulrich Krempel, Ferdinand-Wallbrecht-Str.334 30163 Hannover - 2017

including all kinds of artistic and river memorabilia; children’s art works; installations of memorabilia; and art work, sketches and models for works by Mr. Couper. All this developed in close connection with the inhabitants of Chelsea, with artist’s friends, and resulting in all different kinds of activities, from education and art courses for children to projects like the FLEETING OPERA in cooperation with major London institutions.

Not only the absence of Mr Couper’s personal artistic work, as drawings, pictures, charts, sculptures, models and installations from the public is highly regrettable, but also the fact, that the collected heritage of the Chelsea community, before publicly displayed and accessible in the Couper Collection Chelsea, is now completely inaccessible. Additionally, there is the high risk of damages to all art work and other kind of sensitive material in the collection by high humidity no longer controlled by pumps and dehumidifiers.

Hannover, January 20, 2017

Short biography; Ulrich Krempel

Ulrich Krempel, born 1948. 1967 studied history of arts, German language and philosophy in Bochum and Rome. 1975 Ph.D.

1980 curator at Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. 1986 curator of exhibitions at Museum Folkwang Essen, 1988 chief curator of exhibitions at Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Düsseldorf. 1993-2014 director at Sprengel Museum Hannover. Was visiting professor at Sorbonne IV in Paris, is honorary professor at Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig.

Lives and works as author and curator in Hannover and Berlin, prepares exhibitions for Dortmund (Niki de Saint Phalle) and Moscow (El Lissitzky).