Harald Naegeli

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Harald Naegeli spraying (2006)

Harald Oskar Naegeli (born December 4, 1939 in Zurich ) is a Swiss artist. He became known worldwide as the Zurich sprayer at the end of the 1970s, as he sprayed public spaces in Zurich with his illegal wall drawings . The artist lives and works at times in Düsseldorf - Bilk and at times in Zurich.

Beginnings and backgrounds

Undine , Zurich (1978)

In protest against the monotonous cityscape of Zurich, Naegeli sprayed black stick figures on both public and private walls. He began to draw on buildings and squares at night and spread his slogans and characters all over Zurich. The Swiss public did not attach any value to Naegeli's drawings, which is why his works were deprecated and most of them were removed. While the general public and the authorities saw illegal and malicious damage to property in his paintings, intellectuals and artists alike placed artistic value in the drawings.

Despite a suspended bounty of CHF 3,000, Naegeli's identity remained undiscovered for a long time, but ultimately he was caught one night in 1979 by a plainclothes police officer; he had lost his glasses while spraying and went back to find them. Naegeli stood before a Zurich court in 1981 and was punished with a heavy fine and nine months in prison for repeated damage to property - by a judge who wanted to make an example, as WDR journalist Hubert Maessen reported on the trial on German radio. Naegeli escaped execution of the judgment by fleeing from Switzerland to Germany. An international arrest warrant was issued and he was arrested on August 28, 1983. Despite the intervention of numerous artists, writers and politicians and a complaint submitted by Naegeli himself to the European Commission on Human Rights, he was extradited to his home country in 1984 following a decision by the Federal Constitutional Court. After six months in prison, Naegeli was released from prison and moved to Düsseldorf, where he continued to spray.

When Naegeli was called the “Zürcher Sprayer” by the public and the press, he was also classified as a graffiti sprayer . He spread his drawings in public spaces at the same time as a graffiti culture was developing in New York. At this point in time, the phenomenon of street art was still undiscovered, which is why the cause of all pictures, messages and names applied with the spray can were predominantly referred to by the public and the media as graffiti sprayers. Nevertheless, he is one of the forerunners of street art in Europe and one of the first artists who dedicated himself to politically motivated interventions on the street. He sees himself as a draftsman who does not limit himself to paper, but also uses walls and walls as image carriers for his works.

Motivation and expression of his work

Fischfrau , Düsseldorf (approx. 1996)

With his figures, slogans and messages, Naegeli intended to express his protest against the urbanization of the city. His goal was to demonstrate with his actions as an "uprising of the suppressed unconscious" against the increasing uniformity and uninhabitability of the city, as he perceived Zurich as a narrow-minded, clean-fanatic city that deprives the residents of their living space with its gray and overconcrete architecture threatened. But he not only criticized the city's aesthetics, he also complained about politics, society and environmental problems. Naegeli's strong closeness to nature contradicted the gray cityscape of Zurich, which is why he felt restricted by the concrete walls and box architecture and therefore tried to create a more harmonious cityscape with his drawings on the street. As a counter-mirror of the city and its heavy architecture, he created light figures freed from constraints with his drawings in order to neutralize the feeling of oppression.

His spray drawings are firmly set lines that are first and foremost an expression of body movement in the rapid development process. He was looking for the simple and immediately comprehensible formula in his fast pace, which arose from a quick gesture and expressed various motifs, including lightning bolts, fish, mythical creatures and female figures. Although he did not make any preparations for his spraying actions and the figures were created spontaneously, he nonetheless prepared himself geographically and looked for a protected place during the day, as his nightly actions were always an illegal act. Due to the darkness, he was forced not to rely on the eye but on the physical passage of time and therefore worked from a sense of movement that increased the line's ability to abstract.

Naegeli's affection for nature was repeatedly confirmed in his drawings and not only expressed in Switzerland and Germany. He was also active in drawing on public walls in Venice, and when he traveled to Venice for the fourth time in 1988, he made the decay of the city and the destruction of nature the content of his drawings and sprayed fish symbols and lightning on the walls.

Despite the traces that Naegeli left behind, he was not the only one who contributed to urban space with politically motivated graffiti. Even before him, an artist with similar stick figures had left his mark on the streets of Europe. It is about the French artist Gérard Zlotykamien (born 1940 in Paris), who in the 1960s began to spray the shadows of the dead victims of the Hiroshima atomic bombing on public walls. Naegeli was inspired by Zlotykamien's work when he saw it while studying art in Paris.

In addition to the influence of Zlotycamia, Naegeli was shaped early in his childhood when he was introduced to the world of art by his mother. The first museum visits in his childhood and the nature-loving upbringing in his parents' home and kindergarten had a major impact on Naegeli's later perception of nature and art. Later, during his studies, he dealt among other things with plant studies, line drawings and Asian drawing. After completing his studies in the 1960s, he dealt intensively with drawings by old masters such as Albrecht Dürer and Altdorfer. On daily forays through the city and especially in nature, he began to record observed movements as simplified outlines and shapes, strokes and lines in handy sketchbooks and made over 30,000 drawings of people, animals and nature.

Reaction to his work

The dance of death on the west facade of St. Cäcilien , Cologne, photo 2010

Naegeli experienced different reactions to his work and received strong opposing opinions on his work, particularly in Switzerland and Germany. While Naegeli's work was called graffiti in Switzerland, it was removed and he was prosecuted, the reaction to his work in Germany was much more positive. When Naegeli fled to asylum in Germany in 1982 to avoid imprisonment, his name had already spread internationally. In contrast to Switzerland, he was recognized in Germany and confirmed in his art. German politicians and artists such as Willy Brandt and Joseph Beuys, whom he met when he fled to the asylum in Düsseldorf in 1982, were among the great supporters and admirers of his art and campaigned for his freedom.

Naegeli first found refuge in Cologne with the WDR editor Marianne Lienau, who, together with her colleague Hubert Maessen, had made (difficult) personal journalistic contact with Naegeli, who had been anonymous up until then, in Zurich in 1980/81; among other things, this resulted in the first major German publication about the Sprayer von Zürich , namely in the art magazine art - Das Kunstmagazin (1981) by Lienau / Maessen. In Cologne, Naegeli sprayed the brilliant Cologne dance of death , which Maessen documented photographically and published both as an exhibition in Cologne and in book form in 1982. After his stay in Cologne, Naegeli moved to "Asyl" with Hubert Maessen in Düsseldorf, who also introduced him to Joseph Beuys .

Significance for street art

In his time, Naegeli's act was still viewed as rebellious and anarchic, whereas today it is seen in the art world as a recognized and valued artistic intervention in the everyday world. Even then and still today, public buildings and walls as image carriers for drawings attracted general attention and sparked controversial discussions. For homeowners and established artists in particular, the alternative character of illegal art is still provocative in a certain sense. Since, according to Ulrich Blanché, street art "is an urban statement against commercially generated mass taste and bourgeois common sense that gives anarchist-creative food for thought", graffiti and street art as autonomous and non-commercial art would lose their appeal and character if they were officially approved would be executed.

With Naegeli's creative impulses for thought and aversion to commercial art forms, he set an example in public and thus laid the foundation for the beginnings of the street art generation. Naegeli's work, which was frowned upon and frowned upon at the beginning of his creative phase, later received the appreciation and recognition it deserved, and as a result experienced a change in meaning. The change in the meaning of his work was subject to a broader understanding of art by the public and paved the way to meet new, alternative art forms in urban areas with more openness and tolerance.

After being released from prison

Some ceramics with the well-known Naegeli figures were created in the prison; Naegeli did not follow the design guidelines of the detention center. After his release, Naegeli moved back to Düsseldorf, probably because of the associated proximity to Beuys. He kept spraying. In addition, he developed a graphic work on paper, the so-called "particle drawings". The focus is on movement and the reduction of the concrete. In addition to more classic works, in which nature often plays a role, large non-objective "primeval clouds" were created as ink drawings, on which the artist often worked for months.

In collaboration with the Viennese composer Karlheinz Essl , Harald Naegeli developed the performance project “Particle Movements” between 1991 and 1993 , in which he carried out very reduced spray actions on acrylic sheets in galleries and museums, accompanied by music.

In the winter semester of 1998/99, the graphic collection at the Art History Institute of the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen presented the artist's previously almost unknown etchings from 1989 to 1998 for the first time. All of his etchings then passed into the possession of this graphic collection as a generous gift from Harald Naegeli and are managed by the Museum of the University of Tübingen MUT. From June 6 to July 19, 2002, the Graphic Collection presented an exhibition of drawings as a contribution to the university's anniversary year. The large-format pen drawings in the context of the so-called "primeval cloud" play a prominent role in the artist's work. In terms of content, Naegeli was concerned with his drawing utopia of cosmic space. The filigree drawings were created over months and sometimes years. The individual steps in the creation were noted in detail on the back of the drawings.

The canton of Zurich had one of his stick figures , the female water spirit Undine on the facade of the German seminar in Schönbergasse, restored and preserved. Naegeli sprayed the illegally created graffito on the concrete wall of the Physics Institute in 1978 . After a renovation in 1995, the cantonal building department classified this spray shop as worth preserving and protected it with a wooden cover. Now, with the preservation of Undine, the city of Zurich is rehabilitating Harald Naegeli and describes his “graffiti” as art and Naegeli as an artist. Few other stick figures can be seen in the parking garage of the Jelmoli department store , where the works of art were also restored in 2009.

Harald Naegeli is a member of the German Association of Artists . In 2003 he was one of the 40 participants in the DKB project exhibition Herbarium of Glances , which was shown in the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn.

From December 2018 Naegeli created a visible dance of death in the tower of Zurich's Grossmünster , planned for four years . He made the removable work for free. The work could not be completed, however, because the space provided for in a contract was too small for the artist's intentions.

In 2019, he was again obliged to make amends for graffiti damage in Düsseldorf , and proceedings for property damage were discontinued.

At the beginning of December 2019, Naegeli announced that she would leave Düsseldorf and live in Zurich again: "My lifetime and my time here has expired ... I want to go back to my origins".

literature

  • Betty Grünberg, Hubert Maessen (Ed.): The Sprayer of Zurich. Cologne Dance of Death. König, Cologne 1982, ISBN 3-88375-016-6 .
  • Anette Michels (Ed.): Harald Naegeli. Spatial movements. Etchings 1989 to 1998. With a catalog raisonné of the etchings. Hatje, Ostfildern-Ruit 1998, ISBN 3-7757-0771-9 .
  • Michael Müller (Ed.): The Sprayer of Zurich. Solidarity with Harald Naegeli (= Rororo. 5530 Rororo aktuell ). Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1984, ISBN 3-499-15530-3 .
  • Harald Naegeli: The Sprayer in Venice. Photos by Kirsten Klöckner and Harald Naegeli. Edited by Klaus Staeck. Steidl, Göttingen 1991, ISBN 3-88243-195-4 .
  • Von Zürcher Sprayer (d. I. Harald Naegeli) (Ed.): My revolt, my spray bombs, my uprising with poetry. (Documentation of photos, drawings and texts). Benteli, Bern 1979, ISBN 3-7165-0337-1 .
  • Norbert Nobis: Harald Naegeli - space clouds. Sprengel-Museum, Hanover 1998.
  • Sambal Oelek : The Sprayer of Zurich. Zytglogge, Gümligen et al. 1993, ISBN 3-7296-0460-0 .
  • Horst Schmidt-Brümmer: Wall painting. Between advertising art, fantasy and protest (= dumont paperbacks. Vol. 122). DuMont, Cologne 1982, ISBN 3-7701-1396-9 .
  • Ethel Seno (Ed.): Trespass. The history of urban art. Taschen, Cologne 2010, ISBN 978-3-8365-2414-8 .
  • Bernhard van Treeck : The great graffiti lexicon. Greatly expanded new edition. Lexikon-Imprint-Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-292-X .
  • Bernhard van Treeck: Germany walls and walls (= Graffiti Art. Vol. 9). Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-89602-161-3 .
  • Bernhard van Treeck: Street Art Berlin. Art in public space. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-89602-191-5 .
  • Bernhard van Treeck: Street Art Cologne. Legal and illegal art in the cityscape. Edition Aragon, Moers 1996, ISBN 3-89535-434-1 .
  • Bernhard van Treeck: wall drawings. Edition Aragon, Moers 1995, ISBN 3-89535-424-4 .
  • Harald Naegeli in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  • Johannes Stahl: Naegeli, Harald (called Sprayer von Zürich). In: Sikart

Web links

Commons : Harald Naegeli  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berner Zeitung : Harald Naegeli: "I spray again" , October 11, 2008.
  2. ↑ Ulrich Blanché: Something to s (pr) ay: The street artist Banksy. An art-historical investigation. Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8288-2283-2 .
  3. ↑ Harald Naegeli on TÜpedia with web links to his Tübingen works.
  4. ^ Graphic collection at the Art History Institute of the University of Tübingen ( Memento from July 16, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  5. ^ "The Urwolke" - An exhibition by Harald Naegeli, the sprayer from Zurich. Press release from the Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen on May 29, 2002.
  6. ↑ Undine must not die. In: Unijournal. No. 5, Zurich, October 18, 2004, p. 5. ( rwi.uzh.ch ( Memento from September 21, 2011 in the Internet Archive ))
  7. ↑ Andres Wysling: Spray males in tailor-made suit . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 302 , December 30, 2009, p. 15 ( nzz.ch ).
  8. ↑ kuenstlerbund.de: "Herbarium of Views - New Admissions in the German Association of Artists" ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed November 15, 2015)
  9. ↑ Christoph Mörgeli : Reconciled with the repeat offender. In: Weltwoche . 48.18, p. 38.
  10. ↑ The «Sprayer von Zürich» leaves his dance of death as a fragment and says: «Art must outsmart society». In: NZZ Online. 19th June 2019.
  11. ↑ Harald Naegeli has to pay for flamingo graffiti. In: Spiegel online. 2nd April 2019.
  12. ↑ Harald Naegeli turns his back on Düsseldorf. In: Express . Düsseldorf, December 1, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Naegeli, Harald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Naegeli, Harald Oskar (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss artist, sprayer from Zurich
DATE OF BIRTH 4th December 1939
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich