Alfred 23 Harth - Overview

Overview

Harth was artistically initiated by visiting a dada exhibition in 1958 in Frankfurt/Main.

With his essay On Synaesthetics in 1967 he opened his creative horizons to a large variety of artistic fields. He included classical string players in his free improvisation group "Just Music" in 1967 and opened the same year the platform centrum freier cunst in Frankfurt—a meeting point for live free music, art exhibitions, experimental poetry, action, and happening events.

At the age of 23 he formed the group "E.M.T." with artist and pianist Nicole Van den Plas from Belgium and Sven-Åke Johansson from Sweden. "E.M.T." included dada and fragmented classical works from Grieg, Schubert, and others. In 1976 he joined the loft jazz scene in New York a second time and recorded the first LP of the "Duo Goebbels/Harth" including works from Hanns Eisler and later Johann Sebastian Bach. The same year he started to work with video.In 1979 he began to compose for the theatre and made punk jazz. In 1982 he co-founded "Cassiber" and initiated "Duck and Cover" for which he designed a composition in 1983 and co-organized the Marry the World By Conference Call in 1984 at the waschSalon gallery in Frankfurt/Main which he maintained with his then-wife from 1984 to 1991.

In 1985 Harth adapted the number 23 in his name and short name A23H. He recorded the LP Nouvelle Cuisine with "Gestalt et Jive", and composed a minimalist video installation Sam Lang and in 1986 contributed an Amphibian Match to the underwater concert initiated by Micky Remann in Frankfurt/Main. The same year he produced a remix album Anything Goes. He wrote a manifest Paradigmenwechsel in 1988 in which he proclaims the Instant City Happiness I-culture. The same year he founded the post modern group "Vladimir Estragon" comprising Einstürzende Neubauten drummer FM Einheit. In 1989 he created the performance Wenn Gott tot ist, dann ist er im Himmel with a sound collage of original interviews with Jean Baudrillard, Villem Flusser, Friedrich Kittler, and a performance with Russian poet Dmitri Prigov at the Documenta Archive in Kassel in 1990.The same year he exhibited William S. Burroughs' Painting on Paper in Frankfurt/Main and had a retrospective 2324 FU of his own visual arts at the Dominikanerkloster, Frankfurt. He was a member of Lindsay Cooper's group "Oh Moscow" from 1987 to 1993. In 1992 he met his wife, Korean artist Yi Soonjoo, and was portrayed by Moscow TV in the short film Balance Action which was shown at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen.

In 1994 Harth was a member in the artist group Delicatesy Avantgarde with exhibitions in Gdansk and made a street installation Wilhelm Leuschner zum Gedenken in context with his art project Gedankenhotel, 1993–1995, and had a retrospective Tensides at the Deutsches Filmmuseum. He made a remix album Pollock using out-of-print A23H LPs in 1996 and 1997-8 he re-arranged, conducted, and performed the West Side Story at the main theatre in Frankfurt. In 2000 he formed "Trio Viriditas" in New York together with Wilber Morris and Kevin Norton. 2001–02 he had a grant at Ssamzie Space in Seoul and created the LaubhuetteStudio Seoul. In 2003 he started composing a five item CD series Mother-Of-Pearl about Korea comprising a DVD T_error (2005). Since early in 2004 Harth had been a steady member in Otomo Yoshihide's groups and in 2007 he created the European quartet "7k Oaks" together with Massimo Pupillo (Zu), Fabrizio Spera and Luca Venitucci in Rome. In 2008 he had a premiere on a tour in Switzerland with the trio "Taste Tribes" together with Guenter Mueller and Hans Joachim Irmler from the legendary group "Faust". In 2009 Harth formed the duo "Gift Fig" together with composer Carl Stone by the premiere of Adler_Kino 1166 – 1215 in Frankfurt/Main at the festival ROT. At ROT he as well celebrated the revival of his early ensemble "Just Music" 42 years after its foundation. In 2012 A23H had a tour in China with his "Shanghai Quintet". A23H founded many other bands, composed for film, TV, theatre, ballet, radio plays, and had exhibitions of his art works.

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