Felix Stephan Huber

Felix Stephan Huber (born September 20, 1957 in Zurich ) is a Swiss multimedia artist .

life and work

The artist's work consists of digital art , multimedia, video installations , photography and internet projects in which he addresses the social and political systems and examines the possibilities of art to express or even change content. In the photographs, as in his other works, Huber “directs his attention to places that are generally familiar, but are not the focus of interest: elevators, bedrooms, industrial wasteland. His pictorial approach is initially that of the noting photographer: he unpretentiously takes what can be seen with the camera ”(Johannes Stahl). The result is large-format panels composed of several views, such as a work from 1985 in the 240 × 740 cm format, in which "an aesthetic reading (such as beautiful light, special detail or extreme perspective) is omitted" (J. Stahl wo).

At documenta X , Huber presented an internet project A Description of Equator an Some Other Lands ( * 1958 in Munich), which was developed together with Philip Pocock (* 1954 in Ottawa), Udo Noll (* 1966 in Hadamar / Hessen) and Florian Wenz (* 1958 in Munich) 1997), in which the visitor could participate interactively . He thus took part in a virtual journey that he could influence himself. "As an author, anyone can upload scenes they have experienced or invented, react to the narrative threads of others and create a world of 'readable bodies' online". A previous network project by Huber and Pocock, entitled Arctic Cicle , dealt with a real trip to northern Canada, while another, Tropic of Cancer , dealt with a trip as a tourist through Mexico .

For the installation a-side (2000) he showed large-format black-and-white photographs in a nested spatial situation with various banal city motifs, which were combined with small-format, lush green idyllic, glossy photos, while video loops with a monotonous background sound ran on television sets. In 2005, Huber presented a new, interactive computer game as a space-consuming installation in the Kunsthalle Nürnberg , in which the Wolfsschanze, the former Führer headquarters, was the focus. The game offered the right setting for explosive actions, "but also allowed escape to supposedly more peaceful levels".

Exhibitions (selection)

• 1986 Aargauer Kunsthaus , Aarau
• 1989 Museum Abteiberg , Mönchengladbach
• 1991 Kunsthalle Zürich photo projections 1989-91
• 1995 Badischer Kunstverein , Karlsruhe, RAM (also New Museum Weserburg Bremen )
• 1996 Bonner Kunstverein , predictability of the world
• 1997 Kunsthalle St. Gallen ; documenta X , Kassel
• 1998 Kunsthaus Zürich , unobstructed view of the Mediterranean ; National Museum of Art, Osaka (Japan), Art and Environment
• 1999 Solothurn Art Museum ; Heilbronn Art Association; Stadtische Galerie Nordhorn , Nordhorn
• 2000 Neuer Berliner Kunstverein , Rewind to the Future ; Kunsthalle Kiel , Desert & Transit
• 2005 Kunsthalle Nürnberg , trouble with fantasy

Awards and grants

• 1985 Federal Prize for Fine Art ; Kiefer-Halblitzel scholarship
• 1987 Conrad Ferdinand Meyer Prize , Zurich
• 1990 Working grant from the Art Fund Foundation , Bonn
• 1993 PS 1 Scholarship, New York
• 1995 Scholarship from the City of Zurich for New York
• 1999 Art Prize of the City of Nordhorn

Catalogs (selection)

• Photography: Felix Stephan Huber and Beat Streuli , Aargauer Kunsthaus 1986
• Felix Stephan Huber: 10 calendar landscapes , Kulturamt Konstanz 1989
• Felix Stephan Huber: Provisional , Kunsthalle Innsbruck a. a. 1992
• Felix Stephan Huber: Black Sea Diary , Zurich 1993
• Exhibition catalog, Dorothea von Stetten Art Prize , Kunstmuseum Bonn 1993
• Felix Stephan Huber: RAM - Reality Claim Medium , Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe 1994
• Felix Stephan Huber: Predictability of the World , Bonner Kunstverein 1996

Works in public collections (selection)

• DG Bank , Frankfurt am Main
• Solothurn Art Museum
• Municipal Museum Abteiberg , Mönchengladbach
• Art Museum Bern
• Kunsthaus Zurich
• Museum of Modern Art , San Francisco

Web links

• Literature by and about Felix Stephan Huber in the catalog of the German National Library
• Felix Stephan Huber on kunstaspekte.de
• Biography at SIKART (lexicon and database on art in Switzerland)
• Johannes Stahl: Huber, Felix Stephan. In: Sikart

Individual evidence

1. ^ Kunsthaus Aargau, 2005
2. ↑ Johannes Stahl in: Bonner Kunstverein, artothek  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Huber, photography
4. ↑ Paul Sztulman in: documenta X short guide, Canz 1977, p 106 ISBN 3-89322-938-8
5. ↑ Installation in the Otto Schweins Gallery, 2000
6. ↑ Kunsthalle Nürnberg ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2008 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.  
7. ↑ Prize winners - Conrad Ferdinand Meyer Foundation. Retrieved July 17, 2019 .