Günther Rothe

Günther Rothe (born January 20, 1947 in Lützen ) is a German musician , painter , designer and exhibition organizer.

Life

After finishing school and completing a musical training in Leipzig , Günther Rothe was a professional musician from 1967 to 1990. At the end of the 1980s, he increasingly turned to the fine arts. He was a private student of Professor Heinz Wagner , head of the painting and graphics class at the Leipzig School of Graphics and Book Art . At the same time, he discovered design as a rich field for self-testing. He designed a series of furniture and other consumer goods of high functionality. He rejects the ascription of being an inventor: "I only sharpen my eye for things that belong together and bring them together logically."

For the opening of the Promenaden Hauptbahnhof Leipzig shopping center (1998), he brought the large-scale installation "Luminator" by Jean Tinguely , enfant terrible of the Swiss art scene, to Leipzig. Rothe is attracting international attention as the initiator and curator of exhibitions, such as the project “Das Ich-Universum” (Berlin 2007), for which he has been able to attract a wide variety of artists. Each of them faces the artistic measurement of this timeline in an unmistakable visual way. This exhibition runs with a wide variety of artists to this day at various international locations.

music

Rothe learned classical guitar from 1953–1960 at the Leipzig Institute with Margarete Buch (1914–2013), a student of Walter Götze (1885–1965). Then he began to be interested in dance music and began in 1960 to study jazz guitar with the plectrum legend Thomas Buhé .

The Volkskunstschule Leipzig, the forerunner of the music school "Johann Sebastian Bach", opened a special class for jazz and dance music in 1963. Thomas Buhé took him to this special class, where he also had lessons from other important teachers, namely the pianist Arthur Schmidt-Elsey and the musician Wolfgang Günther. 1967–1969 Rothe played in various formations as a guitarist. 1969–1990 he was the first guitarist of the Rostock Dance and Show Orchestra, which he also directed from 1973 onwards. At the same time, he had his own orchestra from 1984 to 1990: Willy's Showband. Concerts and tours have taken him across Europe. As a director, he designed events and shows with well-known national and international artists. In 1990 he withdrew from music and devoted himself to his second great passion, painting.

painting

In 1987 he completed a private intensive course with Heinz Wagner . Rothes pictures are inspired by the English painter William Turner (1775–1851), with whom Rothe shares a passionate will for precision. Turner and Rothe are united by the intention of painting to open up access to the imagery of nature as it does to the nature of a picture. It is not real fields that Rothe composes. He forms seascapes - nourished from experiences, moods and the unconscious - into soul landscapes. Powerfully compressed, they are self-contained without being hermetically sealed.

The painter Werner Tübke , a concise representative of the Leipzig School, certified Rothe “to have found his own artistic language”. While Tübke, with whom he exhibited together in the 1990s, was primarily a stimulus for Rothe, he viewed Heinz Wagner as a formative teacher, friend and mentor.

Rothe refuses to be classified. It deliberately distinguishes itself from the Leipzig school apostrophized at the start of the GDR . Rothe is the consistent image worker in silence. A perfectionist who rarely applies paint with a brush, more often with a spatula technique , but preferably with his fingers. By massaging the colors into the background of the picture with his thumb, he achieves something special. Thanks to this interplay, it creates homogeneity and intensity, depth and translucency . This creates the recognition effect of his works.

plastic

The 1.8 million year old skull of a Java hominid , which is kept in the Senckenberg Naturmuseum Frankfurt am Main, inspired Rothe to an internationally successful exhibition project. He developed the concept of a traveling exhibition in which he included changing international artists. He wins painters, graphic artists and sculptors who, like him, relate to the "I-Universe", to existential questions of human history and the course of the world. The premiere is in Berlin in 2007 in the arcades of Potsdamer Platz, and up to 20,000 visitors are counted every day. The 2010 show can be seen in Leipzig. The project continues to this day with new artists, new works, new views. Rothe advocated giving the unknown work of the artist Erwin Miserre (Horst Meier, 1925-2016) a public. As the editor of the book “From the shelter of secrecy” (2016), he presents Miserre's work. He also advises the Lauchhammer art foundry on the casting of sculptures by the artist. Since he ran an art foundry in Panitzsch near Leipzig for years , he has the specialist knowledge.

design

Form follows function. A sentence that for Rothe is ultima ratio . All the more so because he often sees him hurt. In the nineties, Rothe u. a. the design of watches too. Partners include Gardé in Ruhla and the Swiss brand Saint Blaise. Mobiliar's designs, which have grown into a series under the “optimento” brand, follow this credo. The multifunctional shoe cabinet, part of the series, was an eye-catcher at the 2017 Designers Open in Leipzig. He made prototypes based on his designs. They are the basis for winning companies over to series production.

Works

• The I-Universe - Harmony of Contrasts, Berlin 2007, Leipzig 2010 (exhibition)

literature

• Rolf Cuhrt: Volume 1. Painting and Drawing and Volume 2. Graphics and Plastic 'Verlag, Leipzig, 2010, ISBN 978-3-938543-76-4 .
• Bronze figures Passagenverlag, Leipzig, 2012, ISBN 978-3-95415-007-6 .
• Shelter of secrecy Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg, 2017, ISBN 978-3-7319-0417-5 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rainer Stelle: Telephone conversation with Günther Rothe on February 18, 2016
2. ^ Leipzig Music School : Leipzig Music School | Welcome. Retrieved February 2, 2019 . 
3. ^ Günther Rothe, Peter Barczewski, Gerald Grundmann: GÜNTHER ROTHE - LIFE FOR ART. Günther Rothe, accessed on April 14, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Horst Meier / Erwin Miserre - Horst Meier. Accessed February 2, 2019 (German).