— WERNER STEINBRECHER

Founding Member RATGEB

1946 born in Visbek, grew up in Düsseldorf

1966 after graduating from high school studied architecture at the TH Aachen

1972 after diploma study of painting with C. Fischer at the Academy of Fine Arts Nuremberg

1974 continuation of studies with H. Trökes at the HfbK Berlin

1977 foundation of the artist group RATGEB (until 1986)

1978 graduation as master student at the HdK Berlin

1989 moved from Berlin to Allenbostel (near Uelzen)

2008 died on 23 October in Bardowick

— PAUL BLANKENBURG

Founding members RATGEB

In 1977 Paul Blankenburg († 1996), Werner Steinbrecher († 2008), and Werner Brunner (b. 1941) founded the artists’ group Ratgeb; later Nil Ausländer and Bernd Micka joined them. For eight years, the Ratgeb artists created several murals in West Berlin featuring schoolchildren, youths, squatters, and a biker gang before the group disbanded in 1985.

— NIL Auslaender

In the course of time, by peculiar circumstances, born not as Crocodile, but, as it turned out in 1971, as Nil Noach Auslaender.

In the meantime, various activities: Schools (from kindergarten to university) in Berlin, seafaring on the Atlantic, highway construction in Switzerland, Punch and Judy in Holland, excavations in Sicily and Turkey, organ building in Spandau, cleaning plates in the Europacenter. Last attempt to establish a bourgeois existence: lion tamer at a North German circus. Renewed settlement in Berlin, from 1980 with exclusive activity as a performer. Various attempts at consolation.

Founding of the artist group Ratgeb. Occupation of houses. Use of all possibilities for exhibitions. Massive waste of paper for woodcuts and linocuts. Politically motivated work. Legal and illegal painting of the largest possible house walls. Pointless participation in competitions by church and state. Even painting schools. Finally expulsion from the Ratgeb group, unanimously by fellow artists.

Establishment of a producer gallery in Berlin – Moabit. From 1985 studio and gallery in Berlin – Charlottenburg, on Savignyplatz.

1996 Foundation of the artist group XOX by the strict alcoholic NIL, called BIMBO AUSLÄNDER, the confessed sexist THEODOR HUSTENSAFT and the manic-depressive FRIEDRICH OSTERHASE. 1997 life, residency and work in Kummerow. 2001 Consolidation of the group by its new member. HULDREICH AMADEUS SAUL (schizophrenic complainer). 2002, our student PETER STRUWELPETER is left to his own devices. To date, painted thousands of pictures and made countless exhibitions. When, where and how is of trivial interest.