The name of Galerie Schmela is inextricably linked to what is probably the most famous performance of the 20th century: “How to explain the pictures to the dead rabbit”.

In November 1965, Joseph Beuys captivated an audience in Düsseldorf's old town, who even stood outside the door and watched the memorable performance through the window.

In 1971, Alfred Schmela (1918 to 1980) opened the first new gallery building in Germany, for which he had commissioned the architect Aldo van Eyck;

He also inaugurated the location on Mutter-Ey-Strasse with a Beuys show.

Karl Ruhrberg, director of the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, had already published an illustrated book in 1996 on the wide-ranging program of the gallery since its founding in 1957,

In an extensive study - her dissertation at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn - Lena Brüning now focuses on Schmela's interest in American painting, conceptual art, performance, minimal art and pop art and analyzes the role of the gallery in transatlantic art transfer as well as the "development of the international art market in the 1960s".

Schmela made a significant contribution to establishing Abstract Expressionism in this country as an original phenomenon in contrast to European Informel.

The author, granddaughter of the gallery owner, meticulously evaluates his archives, using exhibitions with works by Sam Francis, Morris Louis or Kenneth Noland to describe the often difficult business relationships with the artists and the American galleries, which offered different framework conditions.

According to Brüning, the “strengths and weaknesses of gallery management” became apparent in the collaboration with the Japanese artist Shusaku Arakawa, who lives in New York and to whom Schmela dedicated the very first solo exhibition.

Thanks to his networks, Schmela was not only able to open up various sales for a then unknown artist in 1964, he also initiated museum exhibitions with a catalogue, such as in the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels.

But contractual ties, such as were customary in the United States,

Schmela did not want to and could not enter into this due to a lack of equity.

Therefore, the connection with Arakawa broke before he participated in Documenta 4 in 1968.

In one of the interesting passages, Brüning describes the stay of Yvonne Rainer and Robert Morris in Düsseldorf, the encounters of the New York artists with colleagues from the Rhineland, in whose studios they were able to work.

In the process, the performance artist Rainer suffered a nervous breakdown: she perceived the German language as "hard and repellent", "everywhere the aftertaste of National Socialism seemed all too present".

These events enrich the matter-of-fact style of the book with personal tones.

By the way, Schmela was not fluent in English, but could rely on the competence of his wife Monika, also in the organization and management.

The author pays tribute to her contributions.

What is sorely missing, however, is an index of names,