Jörg Shimon Schuldhess

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Jörg Shimon Schuldhess (actually Jörg Anton Schulthess ; born June 4, 1941 in Basel ; † June 15, 1992 there) was a Swiss draftsman , painter , graphic artist and writer . In addition to paintings on canvas and paper, he also designed musical instruments, ceramics and small sculptures. He published books with image reproductions and texts.

Life

After graduating from school, Schuldhess looked for an apprenticeship with a sculptor, but his parents insisted on commercial training. After graduation, he learned the basics of painting from the Basel painter Max Kämpf , especially drawing the human body. In 1963 he held his first exhibition and only worked as a freelance artist. He received support for about 5 years from the patronage "Patis" founded in 1964. Alone and with other painters of his generation, he organized happenings and campaigns. In 1967 he founded the Farnsburg Group with Kurt Fahrner and other young painters in Basel , the aim of which was to create opportunities for the young generation of painters to develop independently of the established art business.

Schuldhess lived most of the time in the region or in the city of Basel, a few years in northern Italy and a few months in southern Spain. He traveled a lot, visited all continents, exhibited in many countries. In the last years of his life, his activities mainly focused on India and China. He died while preparing exhibitions in Goa and Jinan, which became his first posthumous exhibitions.

The Holocaust and the State of Israel preoccupied Schuldhess throughout his life and largely determined the subject matter of his pictures and writings (pictures of the gas chambers from 1963, biblical illustrations and “Roman temples” from 1970, pictures of Palestinian refugees after 1982). In order not to become complicit in a new extermination of the Jews as a person of the post-war generation , Schuldhess made himself available to the Israeli army in the wars of 1967 and 1973. As a result, he was accepted into the Basel Israelite community in 1968. He toured the Land of Israel and the West Bank many times planning immigration. With increasing alarm, he observed the settlement activity in the territories conquered by Israel in 1967. When the war in Lebanon broke out in 1982, he protested in the media and in circulars against what he saw as the wrong path from Israel. Still associated with Judaism as a religion, he condemned the occupation policy of the State of Israel. As a result, Schuldhess turned to the Indian intellectual world. He was interested in the teachings of non-violence and tolerance, Gandhi , Ramakrishna and Jainism . These determine the subject matter and the locations of his exhibitions in the years 1990–92.

Schuldhess died at the age of 51 of heart failure. According to his request, his ashes were buried in Calcutta in the Ganges .

Painting technique and style

Schuldhess understood intuition as the main source of his painting. He believed that rational thinking could distort the truth of the picture. In order to switch off the judgmental intellect and to activate the intuition, he prepared his painting ground with sprayed paint stains. Then he spontaneously developed his motif without any sketch . He never painted from a template or from nature. His image motifs, people, animals, plants or architecture, are not images of external reality, but of symbolic meaning.

Schuldhess saw his painting as committed art, not as l'art pour l'art. (Quote: “I am not a painter of the fine arts.” Film “Der Riss” DRS 1986/87.) Many of his pictures are related to world political events, to events of war and acts of violence.

Schuldhess' work was recorded as completely as possible in a complete catalog of works. The first four volumes of these were printed; they contain the works from 1959 to 1973. In total, photos and data for a little more than 7,000 individual works are documented.

The crack

A special symbol in Schuldhess' pictorial language is the painted "crack" that runs through many of his oil paintings lengthways, across or diagonally. "The crack makes a disturbance visible, the order is broken." In the image of the «punitive task», the entire surface of the picture is covered with stick figures, enclosed in grid-like cells. The crack shows a similar layer underneath. In some pictures the crack encloses shadowy figures. A red line runs through the crack in the pictures of the last months of his life.

With the film “Der Riss” from 1986/87, Swiss television documented the importance of the crack as a pictorial motif and an expression of Schuldhess' personal commitment.

Fonts

"I'm not an artist, I only paint what I can't say." In his books, Schuldhess combines reproductions of his pictures with texts to convey his message. In the books of the years before 1980 the subject is related to questions of life in general. From 1982 onwards it focuses mainly on the situation in the Middle East. The parts of the text are composed of reports and discussions in letter form and selected leaflets, supplemented by some letters of reply and documentation from the press.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1967: Farnsburg Group , Farnsburg Restaurant, Basel
  • 1970: Retrospective , Old Bezalel Museum, Jerusalem.
  • 1972: Yoseido Gallery, Swiss Patronage. Embassy, ​​Tokyo.
  • 1977: Int. Monetary Fund Visitor's Center, Patronage of the Swiss Embassy, ​​Washington.
  • 1986: Nieve sobre Palestina , Alhambra, Granada.
  • 1988: Minzu Palace (Cultural Palace of Minorities), Beijing.
  • 1988: The Cains mark on Abel , Bodenacker grammar school, Liestal.
  • 1990, 1993: Academy of Fine Arts, Calcutta.
  • 1988, 1990, 1991: Taj Art Gallery, Mumbay.
  • 1993: Jörg Shimon Schuldhess-Arthur Rimbaud, Rencontre Spiritual, organized by the Swiss Embassy in Ethiopia, Addis Abeba Hilton, Addis Ababa.
  • 1993-1994: Kali. Visions of the Black Mother , Ethnographic Museum of the City of Zurich, Zurich.
  • 1974, 1982, 1995: Galleria Comunale, Portogruaro.
  • 2000 and 2003: An audible self-talk , Liestal Poet and City Museum , Liestal.
  • 2004: Face to Face with Truth , organized by the Swiss Embassy in Malaysia, National Gallery Kuala Lumpur, Kuala Lumpur.
  • 2007: 1967 - An exhibition on the Basel Farnsburg Group , Klingental exhibition space, Basel.
  • 2014: Broken tablets. Suffering for Israel and Palestine in Pictures , Liestal Poet and City Museum

Prizes, awards

Fonts (selection)

  • Diary and letters. I.–IV. Part. Patis, Basel 1967–1969.
  • Tears on glass. Hanns-Joachim-Starczewski-Verlag, Höhr-Grenzhausen 1973.
  • Contribution in: Hans-Alfred Herchen (Ed.): Authors' workshop, anthology. RG Fischer-Verlag, Frankfurt 1983, ISBN 3-88323-432-X , pp. 245-261.
  • Series: The sign of Cain on Abel. Vol. I-V. Patis, Basel 1985–1988, ISBN 3-907521-013 .
  • Si, si, si, flores, si. Patis, Basel 1991.
  • Never in heaven, so on earth - Radice. Patis, Basel 1993.

Literature (selection)

  • Catalog raisonnés I – IV: I: Paul Boerlin and others: Jörg Schulthess. The entire work up to June 1970. Raeber Verlag, Lucerne 1970. - II: Markus Maas and others: Jörg Schulthess. Second part of the catalog of works. Patis, Basel 1971. - III: Markus Maas and others: Jörg Schulthess. The entire work. Patis, Basel 1971. - IV: Beat Dietschy and others: Jörg Schuldhess, Catalog IV. Patis, Basel 1973.
  • Giancarlo Pauletto, Pietro Nonis, Marcello De Stefano: Schuldhess. Centro Iniziative Culturali Pordenone, Pordenone 1974.
  • Peter Killer: Jörg Shimon Schuldhess and his Jewish opponents. In: Tages-Anzeiger , October 13, 1984.
  • Renata Graziano: Apporto critico all'opera di Jörg Shimon Schuldhess. Dissertation, Istituto Universitario di Lingue Moderne Milano, 1989/90. Patis, Basel 1991.
  • Patrizia Lancetti: Jörg Shimon Schuldhess. La vita e l'opera. Contributi analitici. Dissertation. Istituto Universitario di Lingue Moderne Milano, 1990/91. Patis, Basel 1992.
  • Giancarlo Pauletto among others: Dal Po al Gange. Cara India - Cara Italia. Galleria comunale di arte contemporanea, Portogruaro 1995.
  • Jörg Shimon Schuldhess. Face to face with truth. National Gallery of Art, Kuala Lumpur 2004.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Paul Boerlin include: Jörg Schulthess. The entire work up to June 1970 , Raeber Verlag, Lucerne, 1970, image numbers 41.08–41.10 and others
  2. ↑ Markus Maas and others: Jörg Schulthess. Second part of the catalog of works. Patis, Basel 1971, image numbers 48.42 II - 48.46 II and others
  3. ↑ Jörg Shimon Schuldhess: Series: On Abel the sign of Cain . Vol. I, panel 1 and 3 and V, panels 2–7 and 28–35, Patis, Basel 1985–1988
  4. ↑ Jörg Shimon Schuldhess: Series: On Abel the sign of Cain. Patis, Basel 1985-1988, Volume II, pp. 68-73; Volume III, pp. 51-69.
  5. ↑ Jörg Schulthess: Diary and Letters, Part II Patis, Basel 1968, p. 16 f.
  6. ^ A b Philippe Dätwyler: The crack. Portrait of the painter Jörg Shimon Schuldhess. Swiss television DRS, 1986/87.
  7. ↑ Paul Boerlin include: Jörg Schulthess. The entire work up to June 1970. Raeber Verlag, Lucerne 1970, image no. 44.37, 44.57, 45.21, etc.
  8. ↑ Jörg Shimon Schuldhess: Diary 8. p. 21.
personal data
SURNAME Schuldhess, Jörg Shimon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schulthess, Jörg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss painter and graphic artist
DATE OF BIRTH June 4, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH June 15, 1992
Place of death Basel