Bruno Bischofberger

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Bruno Bischofberger (2008)

Bruno Franz Bischofberger (born January 1, 1940 in Zurich ) is a Swiss gallery owner and collector .

Life

Bischofberger was born in Zurich in 1940 as the son of a doctor and a dentist. The family on his father's side came from Appenzell Innerrhoden , a rural landscape in which he spent a lot of time in his childhood and youth. He was the youngest of four siblings. Bischofberger studied art history , archeology and folklore at the University of Zurich , with subsequent years of study in Bonn and Munich . Bischofberger has three daughters and one son. Bruno Bischofberger lives with his wife Christina, called Yoyo , in a house designed by Ettore Sottsass in Meilen .

gallery

Bischofberger opened his first gallery in 1963 on Pelikanstrasse in Zurich, at that time still under the name City-Galerie. In 1965 he showed his first Pop Art exhibition in his gallery with works by Roy Lichtenstein , Robert Rauschenberg , Andy Warhol , Tom Wesselmann , Claes Oldenburg and Jasper Johns . In the 1970s, Bischofberger exhibited artists of Minimalism , Land Art and Conceptual Art , such as Sol Le Witt , Donald Judd , Dan Flavin , Bruce Nauman , Joseph Kosuth , On Kawara , and Nouveau Réalisme in Paris, in addition to American Pop Art . like Yves Klein , Daniel Spoerri and Jean Tinguely . Between 1982 and 2005, Bischofberger's wife Christina published the catalog raisonné in three volumes by Jean Tinguely. In the 1980s, he added up-and-coming key figures from the emerging neo-expressionist movements such as Miquel Barceló , Jean-Michel Basquiat , Mike Bidlo , George Condo , Francesco Clemente , Enzo Cucchi , Dokoupil , Peter Halley , David Salle and Julian Schnabel to his program.

In 2009 and 2010, Bischofberger's 1980s artists were shown in two exhibitions in the Bielefelder Kunsthalle under the name “The 80s Revisited - From the Bischofberger I & II Collection”. The Neue Wilde from Berlin such as Rainer Fetting or Salomé and the Mülheimer Freiheit around Walter Dahn and Dokoupil were also represented. Bischofberger maintained close personal relationships with most of them, some of them to this day.

In 2013 the gallery moved from Zurich to Männedorf, where, since 2005, Bischofberger has had various buildings built on a former factory site by his daughter Nina Bischofberger and her husband, Florian Baier. In addition to the gallery space, there are exhibition and storage rooms for art as well as objects from the various collections. Since the mid-1980s, Bischofberger has advertised its exhibitions on the back cover of the Artforum and Kunstbulletin magazines . Instead of showing works of art from the exhibition, he uses photographs of popular Swiss scenes. In 2018, the artist Peter Fischli and Hilar Stadler , curator of the museum in Bellpark in Kriens, dedicated an exhibition to these backcovers.

Warhol and Basquiat

Bischofberger is particularly known for his close relationship with Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat. He met Warhol for the first time in New York in 1966. At another meeting in 1968, Warhol showed him early, unpublished work. Bischofberger was allowed to select eleven very important ones, including hand-painted early works such as Superman, Batman, a colored Coca-Cola picture as well as several large disaster pictures (car crashes) and early portraits from the years 1961 to 1963. Warhol promised Bischofberger a right of first refusal on all his future works, which lasted until Warhol's death in 1987. Bischofberger traveled to New York City several times a year . In 1970 Warhol made a portrait of Bischofberger, whereupon he encouraged the artist to make commissioned portraits with standard dimensions and fixed prices for customers of the gallery, which were Warhol's most important source of income for years. Basquiat's work was first seen by Bischofberger in 1981, and a year later he became its main gallery owner worldwide until the artist's death in 1988. It was also Bischofberger who introduced Warhol and Basquiat to each other, and who later encouraged their collaborations with Francesco Clemente. The two artists then continued their collaboration independently. Basquiat convinced Warhol to paint by hand again after having worked exclusively with screen printing for 23 years. Bischofberger came up with the idea for the artist collaborations because Basquiat created several works of art with Bischofberger's then three-year-old daughter Cora while visiting Switzerland. In 1969, Bischofberger founded Interview Magazin together with Warhol. In Julian Schnabel's 1996 film Basquiat, Bruno Bischofberger is portrayed by Dennis Hopper .

Collections

In his private life, Bischofberger and his wife Christina also collect design, photography, folk art and works of prehistoric stone art, a collection that his father laid the foundations for. The comprehensive collection of international design of the 20th century includes furniture, metalwork, jewelry, textiles and posters, as well as glass and ceramic objects from the main representatives of the most important styles. The glass collection includes groups of works from Italy, France, Finland and Sweden, but also from all over the world. Another collection is the folk art mainly from the Alpine countries, Switzerland, Germany and Austria and mainly includes furniture, pictures, religious folk art and everyday objects of the rural population from the 15th to 19th centuries.

The collection of prehistoric stone art contains axes, vessels, sculptures and objects from various early cultures around the world and prehistory. The photography collection includes works from the time photography was invented in the 1850s to the present day: cities and landscapes from the 1850s and 1860s, the estate of Albert Steiner, fashion and advertising photographs of the great names of the 20th century and a large part of Andy Warhol's photographic work. In 2008, parts of the various collections were exhibited in the exhibition “Prehistory to the future - Highlights from the Bischofberger Collection” in the Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli.

Publications

  • Andy Warhol's Visual Memory . In: - Bruno Bischofberger, Andy Warhol's Visual Memory, Edition Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich, 2001, p. 9ff .; (In German) Carl Haenlein (ed.), Andy Warhol Photographs 1976–1987, Kestnergesellschaft, Hanover, 2001, p. 13ff.
  • A Brief History of My Relationship with Andy Warhol . In: (Extended version as foreword) Bruno Bischofberger, Andy Warhol's Visual Memory, Edition, Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich, 2001, pp. 6–7; Magnus Bischofberger, Prehistory to the Future, Highlights from the Bischofberger Collection, Electa, Milan, 2008, pp. 258-259
  • Collaborations: Reflections on the Experiences with Basquiat, Clemente and Warhol. In: (Edited Version) Magnus Bischofberger, Prehistory to the Future, Highlights from the Bischofberger Collection, Electa, Milan, 2008, p. 262ff .; (Unedited version) Tilman Osterwold (ed.), Collaborations: Warhol, Basquiat Clemente, Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit, 1996, p. 39ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Chu, Christie (February 9, 2015): A Look Back at Bruno Bischofberger's Weird and Legendary Artforum Ads , Artnet, accessed July 1, 2019
  2. ↑ Hess, Ewa (April 26, 2018): Gallery owner shows his pop art , Tages-Anzeiger, accessed on July 1, 2019
  3. ↑ A daughter was photographed by Warhol in 1975 and the son by Warhol in 1983 and in 1985 by Robert Mapplethorpe .
  4. ↑ a b c Bruno Bischofberger website , accessed on July 1, 2019
  5. ↑ a b c Hess, Ewa (April 26, 2018): Gallery owner shows his pop art , Tages-Anzeiger, accessed on July 1, 2019
  6. ↑ a b artnet News (January 9, 2015): Vito Schnabel Taking Over Bruno Bischofberger's Gallery Space , Artnet, accessed on July 1, 2019
  7. ↑ Herchenröder, Christian (June 11, 2010): [1] PAINTING IN THE 80S: Obsessive painting does not always pass the market test, Handelsblatt, accessed on July 1, 2019
  8. ↑ Stöckmann, Jochen (March 21, 2010): German museums slept through a decade , Deutschlandfunk Kultur, accessed on July 1, 2019
  9. ↑ a b Yablonsky, Linda (November 23, 2015): A Place for Everything , W Magazine, accessed July 1
  10. ↑ Chu, Christie (February 9, 2015): A Look Back at Bruno Bischofberger's Weird and Legendary Artforum Ads , Artnet, accessed July 1, 2019
  11. ↑ Huber, Marco (February 22, 2016): An internationally known gallery owner and collector , Zürichsee-Zeitung, accessed on July 1, 2019
  12. ↑ Bischofberger, Bruno (May 2001): A BRIEF HISTORY OF MY RELATIONSHIP WITH ANDY WARHOL , in: Andy Warhol's Visual Memory, Bruno Bischofberger, Edition Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Zurich, accessed on July 1, 2019
  13. ↑ Tittel, Cornelius (May 9, 2010): "Warhol only said: What a fantastic artist" , Welt, accessed on July 1, 2019
  14. ↑ Yablonsky, Linda (November 23, 2015): A Place for Everything , W Magazine, accessed July 1
  15. ^ IMDb , Basquiat (1996)
  16. ↑ Rein, Ingrid (1984): [2] The Bischofberger Collection, You: Die Zeitschrift der Kultur, 44 (1984) Issue 5: The 1950s, accessed on July 1, 2019
  17. ↑ Website Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli , Highlights from the Collection Bischofberger, accessed on July 5, 2019
  18. ^ "Andy Warhol's Visual Memory"
  19. ^ "A Brief History of My Relationship with Andy Warhol"
  20. ^ "Collaborations: Reflections on the Experiences with Basquiat, Clemente and Warhol"
personal data
SURNAME Bischofberger, Bruno
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bischofberger, Bruno Franz (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss gallery owner and collector
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich