Dieter Hiesserer

Portrait of Dieter Hiesserer, photographed by Susanne Duddeck

Dieter Hiesserer (* 1939 in Deggendorf ) is a German painter , draftsman , sculptor and photo artist.

Life

The artist, who was born in Deggendorf in Lower Bavaria, lives and works in Düsseldorf and Amsterdam. Hiesserer has been translating his intense interest in literature and philosophy in pictures and drawings since the late 1950s. His rebellious spirit is incompatible with the idea of ​​attending an academic art college , and he breaks off a guest semester at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin . Hiesserer is self-taught .

The first exhibition participations (KE-Osthaus Museum Hagen; Musée des Arts, Montlucon / France) have been taking place since 1962, and in 1964 he moves to Berlin, where he establishes numerous contacts with the jazz, theater and film scene, who are involved in stage design and productions as well as lead to assistant director. He works with jazz greats like Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck as well as with “Modern Art Film” in Berlin. There are film works with Robert van Ackeren . At the same time he paints numerous pictures. He briefly joined the Fluxus movement in Berlin and Amsterdam, where he began working on objects from 1967. An extremely productive period followed in the 1970s, combined with work stays in Amsterdam, Milan, Rome, Sicily and Berlin as well as trips to Pakistan and Africa: room installations, plexiglass sculptures and the first photo series were created. Hiesserer exhibits his work in Amsterdam, Geneva, Belgrade, St. Gallen and Berlin. The Turmac Foundation and the City of Amsterdam buy pictures from the 1960s and 1970s, as does the Schweisfurth Foundation in Munich. Artist friendships exist with HC Artmann and Nicolas Born and Marcel Broodthaers . With the move to Düsseldorf in 1981, Hiesserer received a travel grant to Japan, the realization of which left a lasting impression and many works on paper and large-format pictures. A lasting friendship develops with Nam June Paik . Paik writes: "and Hiesserer a stranger in the heaven, an angel in the hell ...". 1984 "Continuity" with Steve Reich, Hamburg State Opera . In 1984/85 he spent seven months in Kansai and Tokyo, and in 1986 he worked in New York for five months. As part of his scholarship funded by the Schweisfurth Foundation in 1987, he created a series of sculptures in bronze and terracotta as well as colored drawings and designs for the Schweisfurth Foundation.

The years 1993 to 2004 were marked by serious illness and hospital stays. Since then, Hiesserer has lived largely withdrawn and seeks support through intensive work and tranquility in nature: large series on paper and collages, but also large-format pictures on canvas and repeatedly photographic works bear witness to this examination of illness and existential questions in life. Thomas Kling published a poem to him at Suhrkamp. From 2003 Hiesserer worked on the series Sicilian Suite as well as extensive photo series and objects. On the occasion of his 70th birthday, the extensive publication with the title transponere appears in the Cologne Salon Verlag on the life's work of Dieter Hiesserer with contributions by Ulrich Krempel , Veit Loers, John Matheson and Heike van den Valentyn.

Hiesserer has been represented by the Düsseldorf gallery Clara Maria Sels since 1991. Dieter Hiesserer is the father of the musician, media and video artist B Eden (* 1961 as Boris Nikolaus Hiesserer ) and the advertising and TV producer and artist agent Lea Rindlisbacher (* 1966).

Artistic creation

In the course of his more than 50 years of work, Hiesserer has worked with almost all media and techniques: painting, drawing, screen printing, photography and video, sculptures, installations, collages.

painting

In the 1960s, his large-format, striking paintings show a relationship with Pop Art . His technique brings back memories of Henri Matisse's stencil painting . Hiesserer uses the imagery of everyday life, breaks the colorful motifs into fragments and brings them close to the picture surface. Through reduction, overpainting and reflections, he puts them together to create his own image statements. The 1970s are characterized by text images that are tantamount to a “refusal to depict”, but then find their pictorial reversal in monumental works in acrylic or chalk. Hiesserer increasingly finds the approach to reality here in abstraction . The imagery is virtuoso and expressive (1980s). From the end of the 1990s, he reduced his imagery to often mirrored, large-format lines on a monochrome background that are reminiscent of Japanese calligraphy, color and line merge. Spontaneity and harmony are on an equal footing. In addition to works in acrylic, he creates watercolors and gouaches .

Plastic / sculpture / installation

In the 1960s, monumental plexiglass sculptures show his interest in playing with light, transparency, space and form. Hiesserer also experiments with minimalist, filigree room installations and geometric shapes in the room as well as the effect of different materials. From the 1980s onwards, the genres increasingly mixed, Hiesserer created installations that combine painting, collage and sound and testify to his all-encompassing demands on art.

Collage / drawing / sketchbooks / photography / video

Photography, video and film stills are the predominant medium in the 1970s for dealing with one's own biography, but also with the phenomenon of time. From the 1980s, contemporary documents from Japan, among others, and artistic deepening of existential and human experiences, but also sensual, grandiose photographs of nature, were created. Photography functions as a document that is alienated or individualized by painterly or graphic textures. Collages range from postcard format to large format and are often composed of cut-out images from magazines, catalogs or books. From around 2000 Hiesserer used photography as a means of commenting on art history. The functional change in the traditional pictorial means allows Hiesserer a cognitive examination of reality that goes beyond the image, a “kind of pictorial meditation”. He uses this art medium in collages and sketchbooks, but also in his photographs, which often convey autobiographical set pieces through atypical picture themes, details, overlays or blurring.

Motivation / Credo

Philosophy, literature and an intensive examination of spiritual questions determine Hiesserer's oeuvre. His works are an approach to reality with ever different means, they always testify to an examination of time and are an expression of a search for the alter ego. Travel and restlessness determine the life of Dieter Hiesserer, always allowing new perspectives on one's own existence. Retarding moments allow homogeneous work phases to arise, spiritual impulses release new energies, which are reflected in ever new types of work. Hiesserer lives and works in a temporal continuum in which his artistic work remains like milestones. With all his artistic creativity and creative power, Hiesserer always seems to remain a seeker.

Working in collections

Germany

• City Collection Berlin
• Paul Kleihues Collection, Berlin
• Ministry of Culture of North Rhine-Westphalia, Düsseldorf
• Museum Kunstpalast Foundation, Düsseldorf
• Deutsche Bank Collection, Frankfurt am Main
• Karl Ludwig Schweisfurth Foundation, Herten
• Volksbank Hannover collection
• Adolf Luther Collection, Krefeld
• KLS Foundation, Munich
• Clemens Sels Museum, Neuss
• Graphic collection, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Italy and Switzerland

• Collezione Naviglio, Milan

• Lucerne Art Museum
• UBS Art Collection, Zurich

Netherlands

• City Collection Amsterdam
• Turmac Foundation, Amsterdam
• Collectie Gemeente, Amsterdam

Japan

• Contemporary Art Museum, Kashiba-Cho, Japan
• Watari Gallery, Tokyo
• Kenzo Collection, Japan
• Kansai Collection, Japan

Exhibitions (selection)

Solo exhibitions

• 1966: House on Lützowplatz, Berlin
• 1969: "16 Houses", guest studio of the Stedelijkmuseum, Amsterdam
• 1971: "Corner object", Adriani Gallery, Milan
• 1972: "Fly to a Venus by a Tree", guest studio, Academy of the Arts, Berlin
• 1984: "Continuity" with Steve Reich, Hamburg State Opera
• 1985: "Art is not - what you see", Watari Gallery, Tokyo and Inoue Gallery, Kobe
• 1988: "New York Double A", The Kitchen Gallery, New York
• 1991: "Drawings - Pictures 1981-1991", Clara Maria Sels Gallery, Düsseldorf
• 1996: "Aquarelle", Neuhoff-Gallery, New York; Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund
• 2006: “Sicilian Suite”, Clara Maria Sels Gallery, Düsseldorf
• 2008: "Transponere", retrospective, Galerie Clara Maria Sels, Düsseldorf Exhibition title "Erquicklichestücke Vol. I" - "Unquicklichestücke Vol. II"

Group exhibitions

• 1963: KE Osthaus-Museum, Hagen
• 1964: "Gagfestival Berlin", u. a. with Daniel Spoerri, Marc Brusse, Roland Topor, Haus am Lützowplatz
• 1967: “New Realism”, 16 German artists with Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Konrad Fischer, Uwe Lausen, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin
• 1970: Musée dans l'Usine, Geneva
• 1970: Turmac Foundation, Amsterdam
• 1970: Modern Art Museum, Belgrade
• 1970: Art Museum St. Gallen
• 1981: "Happy Chaos", Kunstverein Düsseldorf
• 1981: Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
• 1981: Seibu Museum, Tokyo
• 1981: "200 artists from Japan", Kobe
• 1984: Federal Republic of Art, Art Association Karlsruhe
• 1984: "IGK" exhibition at the Museum Fridericianum, Kassel
• 1987: Contemporary Art Museum, Kashiba-Cho

Literature (selection)

• Heinz Ohff (Ed.): “What is that, new realism?” In: Exhibition catalog Haus am Waldsee, Berlin 1967.
• Gaslind Nabakowski: Happy Chaos . In: Kunstforum International . 43, Ruppichteroth 1981, pp. 128-129.
• Dieter Hiesserer: I don't know good writing, I only know good rewriting . In: Carl Haenlein (Ed.): Momentbild. Artist biography . In: Exhibition catalog II . Kestner Society, Hanover 1982, pp. 80-83.
• Peter Spielmann: The principle of hope: Aspects of utopia in the art and culture of the 20th century . In: Exhibition catalog Museum Bochum , Bochum 1983.
• Sibylle Dürrkop: Dieter Hiesserer, Steve Reich and musicians . In: Program for the performance . Hamburg State Opera, 1984.
• Annelie Poland: Wanderer between East and West . In: Kunstforum International . 84, Ruppichteroth 1986, pp. 278-280.
• John Mathedon: Dieter Hiesserer - reaction to situations . Art Cologne 3, Cologne 1988.
• Ulrich Krempel: The leap into the void - Dieter Hiesserer: Painting - Drawings 1992 . Exhibition catalog Galerie Clara Maria Sels , Düsseldorf 1992.
• Thomas Deeke, Bennie Priddy: In the focus art - young art from NRW . In: Exhibition catalog Westfälischer Kunstverein Münster , Klett, Stuttgart 1984.
• Roswitha Feger, Waltraut Ritter: Atelier II . In: Exhibition catalog Aterrana Foundation , Triesen, Lichtenstein 2003.
• Gallery Clara Maria Sels (Ed.): Dieter Hiesserer . Transponere, Cologne 2009.

Web links

• Personal website with a selection of works of art

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Nam June Paik in a note dated November 20, 1990 in New York. See Transponere. P. 230
2. ↑ Ulrich Krempel, Transponere, 2009, p. 20
3. ^ Veit Loers, Transponere, 2009, p. 76