Alfred Heth

Alfred Heth (born March 20, 1948 in Stintenburger Hütte , municipality of Zarrentin am Schaalsee ; † December 7, 2013 in Wismar ) was a German painter , sculptor and graphic artist .

Life

Alfred Heth was born in 1948 as a child of better-Arab refugees in Stintenburger Hütte, Hagenow district. His father died at the age of three. His mother moved with the children to Wismar, where he graduated from high school and at the same time passed the skilled worker examination as a fitter. At this time he was already attending the painting circle at the Wismar music school.

In 1967 he began studying art education and history at the University of Leipzig . During this time, he studied at the same time at the evening academy of the Leipzig School of Graphics and Book Art .

After successfully completing his studies with a diploma in 1971, he went to Güstrow as a teacher . From 1974 to 1976 he did his basic military service. When he accepted the candidacy of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR in 1975 , he decided to work freelance in Wismar from 1976. In 1979 he became a permanent member of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR. In the same year he married Jutta Heth; they became parents of two children.

Alfred Heth died on December 7, 2013 in Wismar.

Work and reception

Alfred Heth's work has been making a name for itself since the early 1980s because of its striking otherness and indeterminate content. This aroused political suspicion in the GDR . He did not adapt politically and created works that simply did not want to fit the image of socialist realism. His social retreat gave him time and calm to mature. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and under changed political conditions, he was able to present a work that appears unmistakable, independent and almost free from art movements, styles and influences.

His works are confrontations with the most diverse forms of life in a shape. His scientific-physical mind dominates the formal aspects of the creative process with dreamlike certainty. Although his pictures are always impressions of individual existence, signs of human existence in their materiality, they are also signs of their frailty on almost one level. Heth's design aesthetic adopts all forms and materials of our world in order to question them in a new context, to get to the bottom of their nature and to reveal fragmentary insights of a fascinating I-consciousness. His favorite subject is always people. He experiments with the most varied of materials in an objectified and abstract form.

His work as a sculptor attracted particular attention in the late 1990s. The subject of his origins, as a refugee child with a lost home, can be found in the titles of his cycles: Family tree, memory of a clan, clan, Pompeii, Atlantis. He orients himself decisively in his work on the figure.

In systematic series he examines the structures of corporeality and explores borderline situations between life and death. In large-format monotypes he formed figures that are reminiscent of medieval robe sculptures and above them bizarre, confusing light figures hovering; "Metamorphoses". He commented on this motif as follows: "I see my plastic figures as an alternative to a fashionable worldview. If they look more like a bird than a contemporary star, that is, if something from the world context resonates, I've achieved a lot ".

His installations also appear consistent, almost threatening. In 1996 he took part in the "Quicksand" exhibition at the State Museum in Schwerin. In addition to his monotypes, he also showed the installation (untitled, Knüppel) with hanging relics reminiscent of Knüppel. They appear bone-like, touch the viewer with a slight shiver, remind one of the finiteness of being.

The art scholar Annie Bardon wrote of Heth's way of working: "When the artist works with wire, he is by no means referring to the old sculptural tradition. The brittle material gives him more reason to examine the plastic structure and the process than to depict a motif. For Heth, the material is an occasion to examine and show structures. "

Quotes

• "Good art also contains things of the future. Artists are not only slaves to the direct image of the present time."
• "Basically, I want the material to help shape it. In the most extreme case, I can freeze water and then draw it into the ice with a soldering iron. And if I then plastered it in and melted it, I would have achieved a wonderful shape. That is fundamental." something different than transferring a model in stone. I also understand this approach as my answer to the strong materialization in art. "

Exhibitions

Selection of solo exhibitions

• 1983 gallery at the Deutsche Bücherstube, Berlin
• 1987 Gallery in the house of the Kulturbund, Rostock
• 1990 Galerie am Boulevard, Rostock
• 1992 Charitable Society, Wismar
• 1993 Kunsthalle Rostock, café
• 1994 "Overpainted scratches on raw felt cardboard" Kunsthalle, Kunstverein Kühlungsborn, law firm Uwe Jahn, Schwerin
• 1995 "Family tree, memory of a clan", Galerie Meyer, Lüneburg
• 1995 "Metamorphoses" Kunstverein Kapelle Weitendorf eV (Mecklenburg)
• 1996 Lippstadt Art Association
• 1997 Galeria Ratusza Staromiejskiego, Gdańsk
• 1998 "The distance between us and the others" Kunsthalle, Kunstverein Kühlungsborn, Church of St. Georgen, Wismar
• 1999 Harig House, Hanover
• 2002 "Objects and Painting" Kunstverein Unna eV
• 2002 "Faces" Kunstverein Rügen eV, district gallery in the Kronprinzenpalais, Putbus
• 2003 "Himmel" Galerie Nass, Kirchdorf Poel
• 2004 Gallery "Behind the Town Hall", Wismar
• 2005 Gallery "Behind the Town Hall", Wismar
• 2010 Tax office Menninghaus, Lippstadt
• 2018 "And my art will live", retrospective, Kristine Hamann Gallery, Wismar

Selection when participating in exhibitions

• 1981 Galeria Sztuki, Poland
• 1987 "Hand drawings", State Museum Schwerin
• 1988 "Young Art" Kunsthalle Rostock
• 1991 "Raumzwang", Marstall Schwerin
• 1991 "Seven Artists from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania", Deutsche Bank, Rostock
• 1991 "Seevetaler artist with guests from Mecklenburg", forum of the technical high school Hittfeld near Hamburg
• 1992 "Forum Vebicus", Schaffhausen, Switzerland
• 1992 "Linocut Today", Municipal Gallery Bietigheim-Bissingen
• 1993 "Nine Artists", Steeger & Groß educational institute, Rostock-Warnemünde
• 1993 "Six artists from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania", HEVAG, Rostock
• 1993 "Metamorphose", film festival, Schwerin Castle
• 1994 "Grafica Campioli Monterotondo", Rome
• 1994 "Art from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania", Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Hamburg
• 1994 "Black - White", Mecklenburgisches Künstlerhaus Schloss Plüschow
• 1995 "Images of Man" at the Wiligrad Art Association
• 1995 "Linocut Today", Municipal Gallery Bietigheim-Bissingen
• 1996 "Quicksand", State Museum Schwerin
• 1996 "Annual Edition", Art Association Arnsberg
• 1997 "Quicksand", University of Fine Arts, Dresden
• 1998 "Graphic of the Present", Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn
• 1998 "Landesschau des Künstlerbund Mecklenburg und Vorpommern", Kunsthalle Rostock
• 1998 "Works on paper and ceramics, stone and steel", the first Rügen art association
• 1999 "Counterpoints", Mecklenburgisches Künstlerhaus Schloss Plüschow / City Castle Szczecin, Poland
• 2000 "Art forays", Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Hamburg / State Museum Schwerin / Güstrow Palace / Kunsthof Halberstadt
• 2001 "Contemporary Art from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania", ZDF, Mainz
• 2002 "Hidden Gardens" courtyard of the Holy Spirit Church, international art project for the Wismar State Horticultural Show
• 2002 "Contemporary Art from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania", Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania State Representation at the Bund Berlin
• 2003 "Art for private gardens", Sculpture Garden Sürth, Cologne
• 2005 Stilwerk, Hamburg
• 2006 "12 years of the Wismar Summer Academy", visiting professors exhibit, tree house at the old harbor, Wismar
• 2009 "Investment Art", the collection of the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 1994–2008, Mecklenburgisches Künstlerhaus Schloß Plüschow

Art in public space

• Wismar City History Museum
• State Museum Schwerin (Collection of the State of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 1994 * 2008)
• Town hall of the Hanseatic city of Wismar
• Wismar trade school
• Luxury liner MS "Europa"
• Ministry of Culture Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Schwerin
• Rostock University Hospital, Gehlsdorf
• Deutsche Bank Rostock
• Sparkasse Wismar
• Building of the Ostseezeitung Wismar
• Wismar Library
• Wismar University of Applied Sciences
• Hans-Schumacher-Haus Wismar
• Forensic Psychiatry, Rostock
• Hotel am Rothenbaum, Hamburg
• Wismar Theater

Scholarships and Awards

• 1992 scholarship from the German Culture Fund
• 1997 Scholarship from the Ministry for Education, Science and Culture Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
• 1999 Carl Malchin Prize from VR-Bank eG

Literature / catalogs

• 1981 "Rostock", BWA w Szczecinie, Kunsthalle Rostock
• 1981 "Sales Exhibition", State Art Dealership of the GDR
• 1982 "Young Artists on the Coast", Almanach - Rat des Rostock District, Culture Department
• 1982 "Artist Matriculation", Rostock Art Gallery
• 1988 "Young Art VBK der DDR", Rostock District Council, Culture Department
• 1991 "Art from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania", Deutsche Bank Rostock
• 1991 "Seevetal artist with guests from Mecklenburg", City of Rostock, Kreissparkasse Harburg, municipality of Seevetal
• 1992 "Linocut Today", Municipal Gallery Bietigheim-Bissingen
• 1993 "Nine Artists", Steeger & Gross Educational Institute
• 1994 "Alfred Heth", Kunstverein Kunsthalle Kühlungsborn
• 1994 "Artists from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania", NDR
• 1995 "Graphic Calendar 1995", Künstlerhaus Schloss Plüschow
• 1995 "Linocut Today", Municipal Gallery Bietigheim-Bissingen
• 1995 "Metamorphoses", Kunstverein Kapelle Weitendorf
• 1996 "Quicksand", State Museum Schwerin
• 1999 "9th State Art Show of the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Artists Association", Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Artists Association
• 2001 "Art of the Present", Ministry for Education, Science and Culture Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
• 2001 "Gewerbeschule Wismar", Stadt + Haus Architects and Engineers GmbH Wismar
• 2001 "Art forays Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania", State Museum Schwerin
• 2002 "Hidden Gardens", State Garden Show Wismar
• 2007 "Art and Artists in Northwest Mecklenburg", cultural foundation for the district of North West Mecklenburg
• 2009 "Wismar Lübsche Straße 44 Why ...", "Das Boot" Wismar eV

Films about Heth

• 1999 "Endangered Beings", Kunststreifzüge NDR, film of the North German Radio by Michael Engler
• 2001 "Contemporary Art from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania", ZDF / 3 Sat film by Thomas Hocke

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cornelia Redder, catalog of the exhibition "Transformations", Kunstverein Kapelle Weitendorf., 1995
2. ^ Franz Norbert Kröger, catalog from the exhibition "Overpainted scratches on raw felt cardboard", Kunsthalle Kühlungsborn 1994.
3. ↑ ^{a b} Renate Kruppa: The pictures reveal something from the world context ", In: Schweriner Volkszeitung, December 20, 1999.
4. ↑ Catalog of the exhibition "Hidden Gardens", 2002, p. 26.
5. ^ Doreen Dankert: Alfred Heth laments cultural uneducation / Carl Malchin Prize winner criticizes the art business. In: Lübecker Nachrichten. December 18, 1999.