Marxy in the Tower - 1971

On the opposite page, Marxhausen is quoted:

When one says yes to life - all the findings are an affirmation and celebration to belief. Looking and searching s to never know, and expectancy is high.

The entry reads:

First semester Professor Marxhausen invited all art majors and minors to help draw a scale picture of the moon which was placed on the north wall of the science building. During interim his art and science, using techniques from both disciplines, created optical illusions which were placed in the science building stairwells.

Also noteworthy, photos of the student senate and officers were taken in front of Marxhausen's Open Book that year.

- Duncan

Marxy in the Tower - 1969

Marxy appears to be putting polyurethane on a wood sculpture. Above the art professors, there are works by students. The yearbook itself doesn't have information on the names of the students who created the works. Any former students recall these art works? I wonder which ones were in Marxy's class. One of the photos looks like a wood mosaic, which a student could have learned in one of Marxy's classes.
The title page for every section, "Faculty," "Students," etc., showed the same photographs. For the student section, the photo of the students was highlighted in gold ink, and so on for the other sections. Marxhausen was the faculty member featured in this yearbook, which meant this picture was on the title page of each section, and printed in gold for the faculty section. Once again, the photos of Marxhy show him hard at work.

Bless Kids With Rich, Multi-sensory Environs

[Edit:Notice that his list of credentials mentions four films. Time Lines, Findings, and A Time to See are pretty widely known, and have been preserved in Concordia's library, but The Koenig Collection is less widely known. I'm happy to report that I discovered a copy of this fourth film on tape and now have it on DVD. The quality of the audio is not as good as the other three, but it contains some excellent information. If anyone else owns a copy of The Koenig Connection with better sound, I would like to preserve it on DVD.]

Bless Kids

A page from a publication about art education written by Marxhausen. I scanned the whole thing, and will see if I can post a downloadable PDF. It contains artwork and art projects Marxhausen used in his classes.

My First Visit to Marxhausen's Studio

Anne Marxhausen informed me that Reinhold often assigned his ceramic students to sculpt shoes out of clay. These are likely by his students.

This is a model for the mural in the Lincoln Community Playhouse, which I wrote about here.

[Edit: I just learned that this red pipe was constructed by Reinhold's son, Karl Marxhausen.]

John the Revelator, work by a student

Man Ray and Marxhausen's Film Project

Man Ray was an avant-garde part artist who was part of the Dada movement. He invented the Rayograph technique, which involved putting objects on photographic paper and exposing them to light, thereby creating ghostly photographic images without using a camera. He realized he could create a film using this technique.

Ron Bork, Concordia's current Dean of Education, recalled a similar project he did as Marxhausen's student:

The film project involved having a section of 16mm leader film and drawing shapes on it with magic markers. We knew how much space was allotted per second and how close we could put the shapes together so they would project onto the screen in some kind of moving fashion.

Could Marxhausen have drawn inspiration from Man Ray for this class project? You could get a much better feel for Marxhausen's class' film might have looked liked by watching Man Ray's wild film, which caused a fight to break out in the audience. This film was shown in PBS's program, American Masters: The Artists. A DVD copy is available in Link Library.

Another influential artist featured in that series, Robert Rauscherberg, could be compared to Marxhausen. Both used found objects to assemble sculptures. See Marxhausen's Lent sculptures and lint pieces.

I also found the aforementioned Man Ray film on YouTube. Not every section uses his Rayograph technique. You can tell which ones I think may have inspired the Marxhausen class project because they are very jagged, you can make out objects like nails and tacks, and it sometimes looks like snow on a TV screen. Warning: this video may give you a headache, and the last clip shows the effect of light on a nude torso.

- Duncan