Emil Siemeister

Emil Siemeister (* 1954 in Deutsch Kaltenbrunn , Burgenland ) is an Austrian visual artist and graphic artist.

Life

After completing his school education, Siemeister received his basic artistic training from 1968 to 1971 in the field of graphics at the Graz School of Applied Arts . He then moved to Vienna and initially attended seminars and lectures in ethnology and philosophy as an auditor at the University of Vienna before continuing his studies in free graphics from 1973 to 1976 at the Department of Graphics at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. In 1991 he founded the edition and the publishing house Aut.press.Aut., In which his book art works are published in small editions. Since 1994 he has been a lecturer in graphics and drawing at the Berlin University of the Arts , the Leipzig University of Graphics and Book Art , the Vienna School of Poetry and the Technical University of Dortmund .

plant

After the inaugurative manifesto for the displacement of art by a sewing machine (1974) and the second festival manifesto (1975), whose performances both took place in house no.69 in Deutsch Kaltenbrunn , Siemeister began his broad artistic work, in which he used various media and Used forms of expression. Since the early 1980s he has been involved in artistic film (video and Super-8 film), which also documented his numerous body performances, also with other artists, such as Christian Ide Hintze . In 2001 he took part in the opening of the Prinzhorn Collection Museum in Heidelberg with his artistic contribution to the opening lecture with sounds played to Sim-sa-la-Bim .

For Siemeister, book art represents a central medium and process of his artistic work: Since 1988, he has produced numerous artist's books, which in their media and graphic diversity work with the evocative power of language magic and the language image and are now in numerous public collections. In addition to the preoccupation with linguistic mantics, the focus in Siemeister's books is again and again on the visualization of the processual nature of drawing and body performance, which is underlined in its validity primarily through instructions, technical drawings and the frequent change of the carrier medium for the drawings in the artist's book .

In addition, Siemeister combined a wide variety of artistic media in his exhibitions and body performances and often left the tried and tested terrain of graphic material aesthetics: Emil Siemeister, for example, was concerned with installing complete room atmospheres using photo plates (Helle Kammer project, Marianne Grob gallery), or with creating one Drawing cycle on nylon (medium eccentric Andrew Kennedy, Pfalzgalerie, Städtisches Museum Kaiserslautern) and presented his artistic work in the 2006 retrospective exhibition under the title Spagyrik 2. Schweben der Fallen in the Museum of Contemporary Art in the Benedictine Abbey of Admont, in addition to classic methods of graphic work With the help of large-format printed plastic sheets, backlit photo plates and three-dimensional ballpoint pen drawings on nylon. In 2010 and 2011 he further developed his work on nylon and, based on his nylon drawings, made a contribution to the artistic exploration of the “phenomenon of impressing and expressing” (exhib.cat. It breathes me , Oratorium Marianum, University of Wrocław) in on which he created or applied three-dimensional figurations from the surface of the nylon picture carrier.

Siemeister also devotes himself to the artistic cover design of exhibition catalogs (Prinzhorn collection) and books. In 2004 he designed the Festschrift for the Zurich art historian Peter Cornelius Claussen (Opus Tesselatum. Festschrift for Peter Cornelius Claussen Georg Olms Verlag 2004).

His artistic work can be found in numerous public collections and libraries: among others in the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel, in the art library, collection of book and poster art of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin , in the Kupferstichkabinett of the Hamburger Kunsthalle , in the Duchess Anna Amalia Library , Weimar, in the Universalmuseum Joanneum , Graz, in the Bavarian State Library , Munich, in the Austrian National Library , Vienna, in the Württemberg State Library , Stuttgart, in the Saxon State Library , Dresden, in the Museum of Contemporary Art, Admont Monastery , in the Städel , Frankfurt, in the German Book - and Writing Museum in Leipzig and in the Tyrolean State Museum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck.

Independent exhibitions (selection)

• 2013: On the graphic and methodical declination of books , art library, state museums in Berlin
• 2012: Being and appearances in book form , Herzog August Library, Wolfenbüttel
• 2011: Medium eccentric Andrew Kennedy , Museum Pfalzgalerie, Kaiserslautern
• 2010: Graphics & Drawing , Marianum Oratory, University of Wrocław
• 2010: Drawings and a player , Városi Müvészeti Múzeum, Győr
• 2007: Books & Notebooks , Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck
• 2006: The traps float. Spagyrik 2 , Museum of Contemporary Art, Admont Abbey
• 2005: Chorea , Kunsthalle Wiel (Switzerland)
• 2003: Chemical pictures , Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt
• 2002: Schleuderchor , Artothek, Stuttgart
• 2001: Books & Notebooks , Art Library, State Museums in Berlin
• 2001: Monomaniac Chants , Jena Municipal Museums
• 1986: Sim-sa-la-bim , Kunstverein Heidelberg

Literature (selection)

• Medium eccentric Andrew Kennedy. Catalog. Museum Pfalzgalerie, Kaiserslautern 2011.
• Lischetarot breathes me. Catalog. Oratorio Marianum Wrocław, Königsdorf 2010.
• Books & notebooks. Catalog. Tyrolean State Museum, State Museum Innsbruck, 2007.
• Floating traps. Spagyrik 2nd catalog. Admont Abbey 2006.
• Monomaniac chants. Catalog. City Museums Jena 2001.
• Sim-sa-la-bim: redrawings and revisions of drawings from the Prinzhorn Collection Heidelberg 1983–1986. Catalog. with a text by Hans Gercke. Heidelberg 1986.

Documentations & portraits

• Monomaniac chants. Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR), 2001.
• Günter Unger: Emil Siemeister. Austrian Broadcasting Corporation (ORF), 1995.
• Henning Burk: Sim-sa-la-bim. Emil Siemeister. Hessischer Rundfunk (HR), 1986.

Web links

• Homepage of the artist: http://www.siemeister.de/
• Video recordings of various performance appearances on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Emilsiemeister/videos?view=0