Dieter Hall

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Dieter Hall (born September 22, 1955 in Zurich ) is a Swiss painter . His work is characterized by intensely colored, figurative and representational compositions, portraits, still lifes and landscapes.

Life

Dieter Hall was born in Zurich on September 22, 1955. He grew up with a younger brother. In 1961 his father became chief physician in the Littenheid psychiatric clinic in Hinterthurgau, where the family moved. From 1968 to 1974 Dieter Hall attended the Trogen Cantonal School . After graduating from high school, he returned to Zurich and began studying there. In 1977 the father died. Dieter Hall completed his studies in art history and literary studies with a licentiate in 1983.

1981 began his artistic activity. Together with his artist friend Martin Disler he founded the publishing house “Neighbor of the World” (1981–1982). In 1984 Hall moved to New York. There he met an American actor and director, with whom he lived in the East Village until 2008. In NYC he became friends with the photographer and writer Allen Frame, the photographer Peter Hujar , the ethnologist Hugh Raffles, the curator Sharon Simpson, the authors and artists Bill Rice and Jim New, and the two Swiss artists Bruno Jakob and Hans Witschi. Despite his New York domicile and studio, Hall remained closely connected to Switzerland, where he also exhibited regularly. The Solothurn Art Museum set up its first museum exhibition under the direction of Christoph Vögele in 2000. After separating from his long-term partner, Hall returned to Zurich in 2011.

plant

Dieter Hall has been painting figurative and representational pictures in bright colors since the beginning of his artistic activity: portraits, nudes, still lifes, interiors and landscapes, mostly in oil on canvas, often with pastel chalk on paper. The immediate surroundings, both spatially and socially, provide the inspiration for his works. Everyday life creates constant poetic and ironic situations that Hall recognizes, photographs and sketches. Things often refer to interpersonal phenomena and relationships: an empty chair to the absence of a certain person, a clothes hanger to the fact that a shirt was hanging there that someone is now buttoning over his chest, a bathtub to someone who has bathed there Strauss violets with the title "Domestic Violets" on violets or - on domestic violence (a "violet"). Hall also paints the reverse, mental states, comical or absurd thoughts that refer to realities that are often hidden from us by conventions. At the end of the 1990s, nine larger-than-life, upright nude portraits of friends of the artist were created. Each person portrayed carries a musical instrument.

In 1998 Hall painted the film and opera director Daniel Schmid (160 × 96 cm, oil on canvas). An open notebook lies in front of the sitter, who is sitting on a sofa with his legs drawn up, his head propped up and wearing a black turtleneck. On the wall to the right in the background hangs a Japanese woodcut depicting two masked actors. Both image attributes form a diagonal that is interrupted by the body of the painting. They refer to both the model and the painter. Hall not infrequently uses stylistic devices such as those brought about by Japanese painting and introduced by French impressionism into European painting: narrow vertical formats, cropped motifs, depictions without a deep background, “oblique” perspectives.

Hall's works are multi-layered in terms of titles and composition and are enriched with quotations and references to social reality and western literary, art and cultural history. Hall repeatedly paints (not infrequently colored) men in the narrow bathroom in his New York studio, referring to the files of Edgar Degas , who, like Hall, invited his models from his close surroundings to his studio, except women from Degas his quarters, at Hall men from his circle of friends. In 2005, Hall created a series of bronze statuettes, again not women, but men, again in a certain imitation of Degas, and with a smile thwarted the pleasing dancers of Degas by placing everyday objects under his men, such as a bed bottle as a bed, a soap as Slips beneath a seat or puts a real washcloth in the bronze hand of a “foot dryer” (in a similar position to the famous thorn puller ).

A painting shows nothing more than a scheme drawn in white chalk on the asphalt for the game "Heaven and Hell" - possibly an allusion to Julio Cortázar's groundbreaking work , "Rayuela - Heaven and Hell", in his first Part takes place in Paris, wherever Hall travels when he creates etchings, or maybe the idea is simply due to the English-German play on words “Heaven and / und hell”. The multi-layered references that the painter is able to grasp poetically are most impressively expressed in the large painting "Bill & Jim" from the series "The Ship of Fools" from 1999. In this picture Hall portrays his two New York friends Bill Rice and Jim New, two well-known artists and literary greats on the Lower East Side, who, facing the viewer, cover their nakedness with dark raincoats, hold hands, a paper boat that Seems to sail away like a lapdog on a lead.

Since his return to Zurich, Hall has devoted himself more and more to large series of works, such as the cycle “Home - an Invention”, which was shown in 2012 in the psychiatric clinic in Littenheid, where Dieter Hall lived in his childhood; or to Trogen motifs, portraits and landscapes, the Appenzell cycle, which will be exhibited in the Trogen Cantonal School in 2017 - at the place where Hall spent his high school years. He also creates portraits; In 2016, for example, he received the official commission for the Zurich ancestral gallery of the cantonal council presidents to paint the portrait of Federal Councilor Ueli Maurer , who was 1991 council president of the Zurich cantonal council.

Since 2014, lithographic works have also been produced in the Wolfensberger lithographic printing plant in Zurich.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

  • 1987: Robertson Gallery, New York
  • 1989: Bookstore on Zürichberg, Zurich
  • 1992: Swiss Institute, New York (catalog)
  • 1993: Ruth Bachofen Gallery, Santa Monica
  • 1995, 1994, 1991, 1989: Galerie Marie-Louise Wirth, Zurich
  • 1996: Galerie Margrit Gass, Basel (catalog)
  • 2000: Art Museum Solothurn (catalog)
  • 2001, 1999, 1996: Schedler Gallery, Toronto, Zurich and Warth
  • 2009, 2003, 1999: La MaMa La Galleria, New York
  • 2010, 2009, 2007, 2006: Galerie Stefan Witschi, Zurich
  • 2011, 2010, 2005, 2003, 2000: Galerie Martin Krebs, Bern
  • 2012: Littenheid, Heimat - an invention (catalog)
  • 2013: Coffee drawings, Peter Bichsel Fine Books, Zurich / Museum Eduard Spörri, Wettingen
  • 2014: Foundation Art Collection Albert & Melanie Rüegg, Zurich / Auf dem See - Am See - Above the Lake, Kreuzlingen - Uttwil - Sommeri / Max Frisch Bad Letzigraben, Zurich
  • 2015: Restaurant Sento in the Hotel Plattenhof, Zurich / Steruckerei Wolfensberger, Zurich / Estate, Galleria Wolf, Ascona
  • 2017: Helmhaus Zürich , A Fine Romance, My Friend, This Is (together with David Chieppo and Annlies Coste) / Galerie Werner Bommer, Zürich / Kantonsschule Trogen , Appenzell Ausserrhoden, Appenzell picture cycle
  • 2018: last tango. Add. with Xenia Lucia Laffley, Lasttango, Zurich
  • 2018: "The divine order and the inconsistencies of the world", together with Filib Schürmann, Lokal 14, Zurich
  • 2018: Hirslanden bookstore, Zurich

Group exhibitions (selection)

  • 1984: Bill Rice Gallery, New York
  • 1986: Jerusalem Gallery, New York
  • 1990: Salon Shedhalle , Zurich
  • 1992: Galerie M / 2, Vevey / PS 122 Gallery, New York
  • 1993: Delta Axis Contemporary Arts Center, Memphis (catalog with a text by Jim New)
  • 1997: Museum Bellerive , Zurich / Galerie Schedler, Zurich
  • 2000: Schedler Gallery, Zurich / 31 Grand Gallery, New York
  • 2008: At the Navel of the World , Bündner Kunstmuseum , Chur / House for Art, Uri
  • 2009: Aargauer Kunsthaus , Aarau
  • 2011: Museum Langmatt , Baden
  • 2012: Helmhaus Zurich
  • 2015: Heimspiel 2015 , Kunsthalle St. Gallen / work and studio grants from the city of Zurich, Helmhaus / Save the world , Kunsthalle Palazzo, Liestal (catalog)
  • 2016: Salzhaus Brugg , Salon of the Present
  • 2017: Villa Flora , Winterthur, Salon of the Present
  • 2018: Salon der Gegenwart, Villa Renata Basel
  • 2018: Museum Eduard Spöoerri, Wettingen
  • 2018: Impression, exhibition for printmaking, Kunsthaus Grenchen

Publications

  • Dieter Hall - Hans Witschi - Paintings. Carin Kuoni, Swiss Institute, New York 1992.
  • “Viewed so unrelated”, Dieter Hall - Konstantin Kavafis. Edition Patrick Frey, Zurich 1992.
  • 'I'aint no place', pictures / paintings. Contributions by Ulla Dydo and Christoph Voegele. Offizin Verlag, Zurich 1996.
  • Bed, Bathroom and Beyond. With contributions by Christoph Vögele and Allen Frame. Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg 2003.
  • Water, mountains and faces. Edition Stephan Witschi, 2006.
  • Home - an invention. With contributions by Alex Bänninger and Christoph Vögele. Littenheid picture cycle, 2012.
  • coffee drawings. Peter Bichsel Fine Books, 2013.
  • A Fine Romance, My Friend, This Is. With texts by Simon Maurer and Patrik Schedler. Wolfsburg Verlag, Zurich, 2017.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dominique von Burg: Dieter Hall. In: Kunstbulletin, November 2014, Dieter Hall. ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kunstbulletin.ch
  2. ↑ SIKART, Lexicon on Art in Switzerland, Article Dieter Hall
  3. ↑ Carin Kuoni. A painter's profession. On the works of Dieter Hall, in: Kunstbulletin 1.2 / 200 ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.kunstbulletin.ch
  4. ↑ Swiss Institute
  5. ^ Museum Eduard Spörri, Wettingen
  6. ^ Foundation Art Collection Albert & Melanie Rüegg, Zurich
  7. ^ Helmhaus Zurich
  8. ↑ Haus für Kunst ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.hausfuerkunsturi.ch
  9. ↑ Palazzo
personal data
SURNAME Hall, Dieter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter
DATE OF BIRTH September 22, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich