The exhibition On Television, Beckett is a project of the artist Gerard Byrne and the curator and Beckett expert Judith Wilkinson. It presents for the first time all seven groundbreaking teleplays that Samuel Beckett produced for Süddeutscher Rundfunk (SDR, now SWR) in Stuttgart between 1966 and 1985: He Joe (1966), Geistertrio (1977), … nur noch Gewölk … (1977), Quadrat I (1981), Quadrat II (1981), Nacht und Träume (1982), and Was Wo (1985). It also shows Beckett’s television version of his play Not I, produced for the BBC and broadcast by SDR on November 1, 1977, together with Geistertrio and … nur noch Gewölk … under the title “Schatten”.

The exhibition serves as testament not only to Samuel Beckett’s outstanding artistic practice, but also marks a moment of experimental openness, risk-taking, and pioneering work on the part of German television broadcasters. What did Beckett see in the still young medium of television as an alternative to theater, cinema, and radio? The exhibition examines this question from today’s perspective, a time when the meaning and function of television has changed radically in the face of the internet, social media, and streaming services. As television’s ubiquitous dominant cultural position is increasingly eroded, the latent promise of the televisual medium that so intrigued Beckett may once again be visible.

The exhibition’s display borrows, among other things, from one of the historical television recording sets in Stuttgart. In addition to the eight teleplays, which are shown as video projections in four cinema/theater like spaces, the exhibition includes numerous largely unpublished documents related to Beckett’s time spent in Stuttgart and his work at SDR. The presentation of these documents in the form of an essayistic frieze reflects the exhibition’s curatorial-artistic perspective on Beckett. Through the prism of the archive, Beckett is recognized as a visionary of the medium and a hands-on practitioner who directly engaged with the technical and creative process of making television. A selection of films and videos by Beckett, such as his first film Film (1965, Act.: Buster Keaton, Dir.: Alan Schneider), and other artists expand the contextualization of the television plays.

The aim of the exhibition, which is based on in-depth research by the curators in archives in Stuttgart, Baden-Baden, Germany and Reading, UK, among others, is to emphasize the importance of Stuttgart and SDR for Beckett's development of his televisual language. Alongside the BBC, Beckett found a generous and lasting partner for his TV visions in SDR.

Among those who recognized the artistic relevance of Beckett’s television plays early on was the Canadian artist Stan Douglas, who curated the exhibition Samuel Beckett: Teleplays 1987–1988 for the Vancouver Art Gallery back in 1988. French philosopher Gilles Deleuze devoted his essay The Exhausted (original: L’Épuisé) to them in 1992.

Beckett, SDR, and Stuttgart

In the late 1950s, Nobel-Prize-laureate for literature, Samuel Beckett (b. 1906, Dublin; d. 1989, Paris) began experimenting with the medium of radio, writing radio plays for the BBC, RTF and Su?ddeutscher Rundfunk in Stuttgart. In 1965 Beckett was introduced to Reinhart Mu?ller-Freienfels, SDR’s Artistic Director, and head of the station’s Television Drama Department, by art historian Werner Spies. When Beckett met Mu?ller-Freienfels he had just launched a new SDR series entitled Der Autor als Regisseur (The Author as Director). The works that Beckett would go on to write and direct for SDR from 1966 to 1985 would be amongst the most ambitious and uncompromising pieces of television ever made.

The first joint production between Beckett and SDR was the 1966 television play He Joe, which the artist directed himself, unlike the adaptation through the BBC. By 1985 six further coproductions would be realized with the SDR.

From the beginning, Beckett’s directorial work in the SDR studios was marked by a high degree of experimental freedom regarding the new video technique. For his plays, he stipulated the camera work down to the last centimeter and made detailed specifications about the set design, costumes, and make-up. The result was seven minimalist works, which not only exploit the methods and rhetoric of television but also reinterpret them