Hafez Bertschinger
Hafis Joachim Bertschinger , called Hafis (born August 12, 1933 in Bhamdoun ( Lebanon )), is a Swiss artist with Lebanese roots. He works primarily as a sculptor and painter , but also as a writer and designer . Bertschinger is a member of the Society of Swiss Painters, Sculptors and Architects (GSMBA / Visarte). He lives and works in Freiburg in Üechtland and has a studio in Japan and Morocco .
Life
Bertschinger is the son of a Swiss missionary and a Lebanese woman. He grew up in Lebanon with his five siblings until he was 12 years old. After the war and the death of his father, the family moved to Zurich in Switzerland in 1946 . Bertschinger's son Kim is born in 1955.
After graduating from high school in London , Bertschinger studied sculpture there at the Slade School and from 1958 worked in the studio of the sculptor François Stahly in Paris - Meudon . In 1963 he taught drawing and sculpture at the Arkansas Art School in Little Rock , followed three years later by a longer stay at the Cité des Arts in Paris. In 1967 he met his future wife Annemarie Meyer (Mara) at Sonia Delaunay's in Paris. In 1970 Bertschinger moved to Cormérod in the canton of Friborg , where he set up a studio that is still his place of work today. Bertschinger studied art history at the University of Freiburg and graduated in 1977 with a licentiate .
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The years of traveling began for Bertschinger in 1977: he first undertook a study trip to Egypt, in 1982 he rode over 3000 km on the Oregon Trail , two years later he crossed the Atlas on a donkey , the following year he rode over 1500 km along the Swiss Border. Together with Walter Tschopp , Bertschinger traveled the Saane , Rhone , Madison River , Missouri and Mississippi Rivers in 1985 . This was followed by trips to Japan on the Dragon Trail , from Cape Town to Nairobi, New Zealand, Alaska, Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates , and in 2012 he finally traveled to Mexico for the funeral service project . All these journeys in search of the “origin of things”, the elemental forces of the former Pangea , have resulted in works of art that influenced style.
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Bertschinger's mixed origins and multilingualism made him receptive to global contexts and to a “globetrotter” between cultures. Bertschinger took up his suggestions and energies in particular around the "bathtub of western culture", the Mediterranean Sea, but he was also artistically active in southern Africa, the Middle and Far East, North America and Switzerland. He endeavors to look below the surface as possible and "to appropriate the foreign as if it were a part of himself".
Bertschinger's works are abstract. His Leporelli , a kind of calendar that is drawn across the entire work with a single line , are particularly haunting , but also his large-format flags up to 200 meters long, which often take months to create because they are continued differently depending on the artist's impressions of the day on some days only a few centimeters.
His style is characterized by the dynamic of the gesture, the simplicity of the forms, the transience of the materials and an inexhaustible, playful fantasy.
Solo exhibitions (selection)
- 2017 Pangea , Museum Murten, Murten
- 2014 Open Gates , Swiss Embassy, Tokyo
- 2013 With Hafis around the world , Gutenberg Museum , Freiburg
- 2010 Powerlessness: Sculptures and Installations , Gruyères Castle
- 2004: Hafis - l'artiste nomade , Musée d'art et d'histoire de Neuchâtel , Canton of Neuchâtel
- 1996: Hafis Bertschinger - Pre-Dragon , October Gallery, London
- 1995: Texas Christian University, Fort Worth , Texas
- 1995: Dragon Installation , Hinoki Gallery, Tokyo
- 1994: CERN , Meyrin, Geneva
- 1990: Kean College Art Gallery, Newark , New Jersey
- 1988: Musée de l'Imprimerie, Lyon
- 1986: Galerie Planque, Lausanne
- 1983: Galerie Am Platz, Eglisau
- 1978: Gallery in the town hall passage, Winterthur
- 1973: Galerie des Amis des Arts, Neuchâtel , Canton of Neuchâtel
- 1970: Claire Brambach Gallery, Basel
- 1969: Galerie Solstice, Paris
- 1968: Drian Gallery, London
- 1967: Galleria Citadella, Ascona
- 1966: Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha , Nebraska
- 1964: Little Rock Art Center, Little Rock , Arkansas
Movie
In 2018, the SRF- produced documentary Hafis & Mara by Mano Khalil came out . The film, which was mainly shot in 2016, portrays the aged artist who asks himself: “How does a person end his life?”. With hardly less urgency he also shows his wife Mara, who made his art possible for him.
Prizes and awards
- 1964: Sculpture Award of the Delta Show
- 2013: Prix Fondation Bédikian
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Thomas Jenatsch, employee at the federal government in Bern, in his laudation for the exhibition opening in the Gutenberg Museum Freiburg on July 10, 2013
- ↑ Thomas Jenatsch, employee at the federal government in Bern, in his laudation for the exhibition opening in the Gutenberg Museum Freiburg on July 10, 2013
- ↑ Swissfilms
literature
- With a Horse Called George Along the Oregon Trail , Travel Report , Idaho State University Press, Pocatello, 1996, ISBN 0-937834-59-9
- Walter Tschopp : Hafis Werke 1967-86 , exhibition catalog, Freiburg im Üechtland 1986
Web links
Official website of Hafis Bertschinger
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bertschinger, Hafez |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bertschinger, Hafis Joachim (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Lebanese-Swiss artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 12, 1933 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bhamdoun ( Lebanon ) |