Jochen Gerz Public Authorship Foundation

The Public Authorship Foundation is hosted under the umbrella of the German charity foundation GLS-Treuhand e.V. as a part of more than 165 endowment funds and foundations.

Since the late 1960s, Jochen Gerz’s art has revolved around the ideas of society, memory and the role and the responsibility of the public. For him, people are authors. Each individual with their own life consciously and unconsciously creates society. The foundation therefore supports initiatives that open up creativity and authorship to the talents of all.

News 2025

Public Authorship. What if Poetry Was Made by All? The book by Guido Meincke has been published in German by Büchner Verlag (Mars 2025)

‘Poetry must be made by all, not by one alone.’ Lautréamont's demand (Isidor Ducasse, Poésies II, 1870) does not refer to the writing of poetry or the production of art, but to an elementary, practical reality: social life.

Guido Meincke's essay explores the question of what this means today, under contemporary conditions. The concept of ‘public authorship’ is at the centre of his considerations. It originates from the artistic work of Jochen Gerz and is opened up to a broader social understanding beyond the art and culture industry.

Authorship here is not the privilege of a few, but applies equally to all people. The authorship of all is a utopia and at the same time the concrete prerequisite for a democratic community. In the future, an ‘aesthetics of democracy’ cannot be an aesthetics of art, but only an aesthetics of life.

Other Foundation activities

In 2025 so far the foundation contributes to the following initiatives:

SPREUWEIZEN Kids, Saxony, Bavaria, Brandenburg
“Fact or fake ? / Influencing / AI and democracy / Power and opinion… SPREUWEIZEN brings media, journalism and politics into classrooms in a practical and playful way: how news is created, what role AI and social media play in this?”

VILLAGE TALKS, Sömmerda
“We bring people together in one room who would otherwise only talk about each other… We talk about our values and about the things that divide us. We develop ideas for our common future.”

In 2024, in the first year of its existence, the foundation supported:

What if…? Philosophising with Children and Young People, Leipzig

Against the Authoritarian Turn, Berlin

Summer for Refugee Children and Young People, Berlin

# Welcome, Wilhelmshaven

Screwdriver’s Lab, Hamburg

Contact: Guidomeincke(a)publicauthorship.eu