Hans Bischoffshausen

Hans Bischoffshausen , also Hans Stutz (born November 2, 1927 in Feld am See , † June 19, 1987 in Villach ) was an avant-garde Carinthian painter and cultural critic and one of the main representatives of Austrian contemporary painting and graphics .

Life and work

After "four elementary and five secondary schools" in Feld am See, Freiberg, Berlin, Vienna etc., an assignment as an interned air force helper , in the Reich Labor Service and in the Wehrmacht , Bischoffshausen passed his school leaving examination in Villach and began studying architecture at the TH Graz in 1946 , however, did not finish his studies, but mostly self-taught the techniques and stylistic devices of the classical modern . In his early works clear echoes of Paul Klee can be seen, but at the same time there is already a strong independence.

“... drawn into painting by Professor Kurt Weber, the fall into painting began in 1947. After an introduction and a journey through the Impressionists, analytical and synthetic Cubism, Paul Klee's playful secret opens up. According to André Malraux, logical and important for the apprentice of painting, the opening to Lucio Fontana emerges over many stations, whose partial works I recognize as my concern in illustrations and in real life from 1956. Over a period of fossil and well-practiced material battles in asphalt, ashes, varnish and sheet metal, the breakthrough in 1956/57 to our own formal language results. "

- Hans Bischoffshausen

After two solo exhibitions - in 1957 in the Galleria del Cavallino in Venice and in 1959 in Otto Mauer's gallery next to St. Stephan in Vienna - the 1st Joanneum Prize for contemporary painting enabled him to fulfill a dream: he moved to Paris. He set up makeshift housing in an abandoned cold store and had his wife Helene and the two small children follow them. Helene Bischoffshausen:

We lived with rats and fleas. Our neighbors were homeless, black Africans, illegals, homosexuals, moneyless artists. In the morning, before the children were up, I cleaned the communal toilet for all of us. The walls were covered in shit up to the top.

Via the famous Italian painter Lucio Fontana , with whom he had a lifelong friendship since 1957, he found access to a group of artists who, as the models for the group " ZERO ", formed the European top of the arts, making Bischoffshausen one of the most important Austrian group of artists after 1945 who like Wolfgang Hollegha , Oswald Oberhuber , Markus Prachensky , Arnulf Rainer , Hans Staudacher , Hans Piccottini (1943–2008) or Max Weiler in the 1950s and 1960s took their inspiration from the exploration of the abstractly expressive and informal trends in French contemporary art.

Like the group of his French friends, whom he called “ZERO-AVANTGARDE”, Bischoffshausen carried out structural research in white on white - a memorial article will later be titled “Artist life under the spell of whiteness”. The artist developed structural reliefs with a radically reduced formal language and a minimalist choice of materials, monochrome surfaces were processed in such a way that relief-like, sometimes also incised forms were created that create structures. This three-dimensional expansion of the picture surface led to the dissolution of the separation of picture and space. In his monochrome black, white or gold executed structural images of that time he felt his way to the limits of the representability of the structures and the spatial conception until he reached a limit of the perceptible and the immaterial that can no longer be realized with the means of painting . In extreme cases, this led to the fact that the last of his works from that period can no longer be photographed, but can only be explored with the help of the sense of touch. In these reduced structural images, however, the artist formulated all major subject areas such as space, time, energy and silence.

Bischoffshausen passed on the experience he had gained with the French avant-garde from Yves Klein to Georges Mathieu and the international situationists , for example to his Styrian friend Gerhard Lojen , who thereby simultaneously presented his abstract pictures in the style of the Graz secession of Kurt Weber , who yes Bischoffshausen had already "carried away the fall into painting", also created abstract material images under the influence of Bischoffshausen and his artistic environment. Bischoffshausen again called after the untimely death of his friend, with whom it had been in 1983, joint work in Club 2 of the ORF a minute of silence, a silence that was successful even for incoming calls.

In 1961 Heide and Ernst Hildebrand opened the Klagenfurt "Galerie Wulfengasse 14" with Bischoffshausen. They met him in 1957 on the occasion of his first personal exhibition in the Galleria del Cavallino in Venice. This encounter led to lifelong friendship and extensive correspondence with the grateful artist, who lived “like a clochard” in Paris, felt like a “tightrope walker at quite high altitudes”, who was always in danger of falling, and Hildebrandt confessed: “We are totally broke”.

The order for a 30 m long relief frieze for the then new construction of the surgical department in the Klagenfurt regional hospital , which he received from the architect Ernst Hildebrand in 1961, brought relief . This large-scale work, Bischoffshausen, consisting of 12 panels, a "monochrome structural relief", according to KABEG with the title "Champ d'Energie", was removed in 2001 "for the purpose of restoration", unrestored for eight years at Damtschach Castle by the Orsini-Rosenberg family " hidden from the public ”, and finally restored on the initiative of Provincial Councilor Peter Kaiser , made accessible again in October 2010 in the foyer of the new hospital building (now“ Klagenfurt Clinic ”).

In 1963 Bischoffshausen had his first solo exhibition in Paris in the Weiler gallery, followed by exhibitions in The Hague, Rome and in the Kunsthalle Bern, and then again several exhibitions in France. For a decade he took an extreme position of artistic acting, producing and questioning. But there were few really significant orders: one for the porcelain factory in Sevres , two for concrete reliefs at schools in Rouen and Grenoble . 1964–1969 he published his own cultural magazine with the title Bischoffshausen und die Kultur , where he expressed his pessimistic views on the importance of culture more and more clearly:

"The current philosophy, radiating the" truths "SUCCESS and CAREER also into the art world, has given birth to an art of museums, collections and galleries, which, dissociated from life as a whole, inflated by vanity and propaganda only a shadow of its real art determination is. "

- bread and wine - observations and remarks on the integration of the visual arts and architecture; Paris, July / August 1965

In 1969 he took part in the 1st European Sculpture Symposium in Krastal near Villach.

With his return to Carinthia, where the city of Villach gave him the "House of Encounters" in Villach-St. Martin made a studio available, Bischoffshausen initially turned away from the color white. Relief images in gold and red were created. From 1975 the “cultural-political outsider”, as he once called himself, dealt with the cross shape. Material images were created, the image surfaces are perforated, burned, the image content reduced to the essentials. A major retrospective in the Carinthian State Gallery in 1977 finally made him better known in his homeland, but there were hardly any public commissions, so that today his work is largely in private hands.

At the beginning of the 1980s, the artist then returned to the color white, simplified his artistic means, which he called "brutalization". To compensate, he went on several trips, including a. to Taiwan, which were processed in a " Taiwan Report " series. He isolated himself more and more from the cultural scene, and his health problems characterized the last years of his life. When the artist returned to Carinthia, the world seemed to disappear. The hoped-for professorship in Graz went to Giselbert Hoke in 1974 , the award of the title of professor by the Federal President twelve years later was a very late recognition one year before his death. He had started to drink, and progressive destruction of the optic nerve eventually led to blindness. “Maybe I'm here to know what the present is and to shake hands with madness a little,” he says in his diary. In Bischoffshausen, the “unadjusted” made a name for itself: As a visual artist he drove the asceticism of white to the end. As a man of letters who also left a powerful literary work behind, he thought and wrote clearly and hard. “He despised the exploiters. He was a person before the artist, ”wrote the painter Bernard Aubertin to the gallery owner Judith Walker. "He lived an inner grief that accompanied and destroyed him," it says further in this birthday letter.

For Hans Bischoffshausen, life and work formed an indispensable unit. Stutz, as Bischoffshausen was called by his friends and under which name he signed his pictures several times in his early years, lived his artistic program with all its consequences and was one of the most uncomfortable and fascinating artistic personalities in Austria. Throughout his life he withdrew from the general public's taste with radical views on art and architecture issues and provoked a lack of understanding as a “cultural-political outsider” who refused to accept any political or social appropriation in his conception of art. “ Bischoffshausen's energy clouds remain, even if the majority of his contemporaries saw them less, but perhaps felt them. "

Awards

• 1951 Premio d'Isonzo (Mostra internationale dei Giovani), Gorizia, Italy
• 1953 Award of the Carinthian Provincial Government (Carinthian Youth Culture Week)
• 1954 Premio de Gorizia (2nd prize), Biennale dei Giovani
• 1959 1st Joanneum Prize for Contemporary Painting (Graz)
• 1960 Prize of the Society of Friends of Contemporary Art in Vienna (Secession, Vienna)
• 1963 Forum Prize from the Federal Ministry for Education and the Arts
• 1965 Kastner and Öhler Foundation for the Joanneum Prize (Graz)
• 1967 Seref Diplomasi Istanbul (honorary diploma), 5th international ceramic exhibition
• 1982 Prize of the State of Styria
• 1985 Culture Prize of the City of Villach
• 1986 professional title professor

Works in publicly accessible collections

• Italy:
  • 1960: MUSEION - Museum for modern and contemporary art, Bolzano
• Japan:
  • 1962: MOMAK National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto, Kyoto
• Austria
  • 1962: Neue Galerie Graz at the Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz
  • 1962: Museum of Modern Art Carinthia, Klagenfurt
  • 1962: Essl Collection - Kunsthaus, Klosterneuburg
  • 1963: Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck
  • 1963–1964: Museum Liaunig , Neuhaus / Suha

Literary work

• Hans Bischoffshausen: Edition of the literary works under the title "Edition Villach", 6 volumes
  • Cresyl, the sun of the poor. 1962 report, Paris . Work edition vol. 1, ed. v. Fred Dickermann, Wieser; Klagenfurt 1999, ISBN 3-85129-278-2 .
  • An afternoon. Ed. Fred Dickermann, works edition Volume 2, ed. by Fred Dickermann, Wieser Verlag, Klagenfurt 2000, ISBN 3-85129-308-8 .
  • So dear friend . Work edition Volume 3, ed. by Fred Dickermann, Wieser Verlag, Klagenfurt 2001, ISBN 3-85129-349-5 .
  • Red wine history . Work edition vol. 4, ed. by Fred Dickermann, Wieser Verlag, Klagenfurt- Vienna 2003, ISBN 3-85129-384-3 .
  • Addendum to Paris . Works edition Volume 5, ed. by Fred Dickermann, Wieser Verlag, Klagenfurt 2005, ISBN 3-85129-488-2 .
  • Letters to the Hildebrand family 1959-1987 . Works edition Volume 6, ed. by Ernst Hildebrand, Wieser Verlag, Klagenfurt 2009, iVb. ISBN 3-85129-694-X .
• Hans Bischoffshausen: Designing our living space. In: Otto Breicha, Gerhard Fritsch (Hrsg.): Call for mistrust. Literature, fine arts, music in Austria since 1945 . Residenz Verlag, Salzburg 1967, p. 523.
• Hans Bischoffshausen: Book drawings from the 1950s. Galerie Akademia, Residenz-Verlag, Salzburg 1985.

Literature and catalogs

• Austrian Gallery Belvedere: Hans Bischoffshausen and Galerie Hildebrand, more than zero. Ritter Verlag, Klagenfurt 2015, ISBN 978-3-85415-535-5 .
• Arnulf Rohsmann: Bischoffshausen structure, monochrome, reduction . Habilitation thesis Univ. Graz, Ritter-Verlag, Klagenfurt 1991, ISBN 3-85415-099-7 .
• Barbara Pipan: Hans Bischoffshausen in comparison with three artists from Group Zero (Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein, Günther Uecker) . Diploma thesis, University of Applied Arts, Vienna 1993.
• Peter Baum: Hans Bischoffshausen 1950–1977 . Exhibitions New Gallery of the City of Linz, New Gallery at the Landesmuseum Joanneum Graz, Vienna Secession, Carinthian State Gallery Klagenfurt, o.O. 1977.
• Hans Smoliner, Stefan Jank, Robert Kravanja: Stutz - Hans Bischoffshausen and friends come to Obiditsch . Catalog for the exhibition of the same name as part of the GEMMAKUNSTSCHAUN project. Kitab publishing house, Klagenfurt-Vienna 2008, ISBN 978-3-902585-28-8 .
• Austrian painters of the 19th / 20th centuries Century: Hans Bischoffshausen. Parnass Art Magazine 4/07, Parnass Verlag, Vienna 2007.
• Wilhelm Steinböck: Hans Bischoffshausen 1927–1987 . Edited by Cultural department of the provincial capital Graz, Verlag des Stadtmuseum, Graz 1987, ISBN 3-900764-02-6 .
• Lüpke Gallery, Schiessel Gallery: Hans Bischoffshausen, early pictures 1955–1965 . Galerie Lüpke, Frankfurt am Main 1982.
• Kurt Ewald Bernthaler: Homage to Hans Bischoffshausen . Kärntner Druck- und Verlags-Ges., Klagenfurt, ISBN 3-85391-080-7 .
• Walther Nowothy: Hans Bischoffshausen . Galleria del Cavallino Publishing House, 1957.
• Galerie Thoman (ed.): Hans Bischoffshausen. Pictures 1951–1982 . Innsbruck, 1990.
• Peter Weiermair: Overcoming the image . In: Hans Bischoffshausen. Pictures 1951–1982 . Innsbruck 1990.
• Arno Popotnig: In and from Carinthia - a sighting (on art history after 1945) . Thesis. University of Applied Arts, Vienna 1991
• Hans D. Smoliner: "Crucified Images". Texts about Hans Bischoffshausen . Limited edition 1998.
• Sigismund von Bischoffshausen: Bischofshausen. The story of a place and gender name. Hitzeroth, Marburg 1932.

Other

In 1984 Gunter Schneider composed Zu Blind - four fragments based on drawings by Hans Bischoffshausen for solo instruments.

Web links

• Helene, Stutz and art . Interview with the widow. (PDF; 6.19 MB) In: The Bridge. Carinthia. Art. Kultur 73, December 06 / January 07, pp. 22-24, accessed on August 6, 2009
• StockArtist.com: Market value of Bischoffshausen
• Literature House
• Horst Gerhard Haberl: Bischoffshausen, designer of energy clouds . Graz Secession

Individual evidence

1. ^ Robert Waissenberger : The Vienna Secession . Jugend & Volk, Vienna 1971 p. 255
2. ^ Galerie Thoman, Innsbruck: Hans Bischoffshausen
3. ↑ Helene, Stutz and art . (PDF; 6.5 MB) In: The Bridge. Carinthia. Art. Culture 73 (06/07), p. 22
4. ^ Horst Gerhard Haberl: Sezession Graz: Bischoffshausen
5. ↑ Uschi Loigge: Artist life under the spell of whiteness. The white outsider would be 80 years old today. ( Memento from September 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Kleine Zeitung , November 2, 2007
6. ↑ Gunther Dankl: The masterpieces of the Ferdinandeum ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; RTF ; 24 kB) on the painting "Font" 
7. ↑ Museum Joanneum: Gerhard Lojen  ( page can no longer be accessed , 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.  
8. ↑ Johannes Rauchberger: "The rabbit is alive." Images one year apart after Gerhard Lojens death p.12  ( 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. (PDF) Lojen  ( 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.    
9. ↑ see Volume VI of the works edition: Letters to the Hildebrand family
10. ↑ Erwin Hirtenfelder: We are totally broke . ( Memento from October 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Kleine Zeitung , Carinthia edition, November 3, 2009
11. ↑ Kabeg Symposium: October 7, 2010, 5:00 p.m .: "Art cocktail and unveiling of the work of art 'Champ d'Energie' by Hans Bischoffshausen in the foyer of the clinic - Klagenfurt aW" ( Memento of the original from February 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 583 kB)  
12. ↑ Erwin Hirtenfelder: "Lost" Bischoffshausen comes to light again . ( Memento from October 23, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) In: Kleine Zeitung , Carinthia edition, November 3, 2009
13. ↑ Kabeg press release ( Memento of the original from February 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 20 kB)  
14. ↑ ^{a b} Helene, Stutz and art . In: The bridge. 73 (06/07), p. 24 (PDF; 6.5 MB)
15. ↑ Galerie Walker: Bischoffshausen Biographie ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 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. 
16. ^ City of Villach ( Memento from May 18, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Press releases, archive 2005
17. ↑ Gallery Magnet: Hans Bischoffshausen ( Memento of the original from March 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
18. ^ Artist's Life under the Spell of Whiteness ( Memento from September 15, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Kleine Zeitung , November 2, 2007
19. ↑ Galerie Walker: Rückblick 2003 , accessed August 5, 2009
20. ↑ Horst Georg Haberl: Hans Bischoffshausen died at the age of 59 in Villach. Obituary from the Kleine Zeitung of June 23, 1987