Juerg Hassler

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Jürg Hassler (born September 4, 1938 in Zurich ) is a Swiss photographer , sculptor , screenwriter , film director , cameraman and film editor .

Juerg Hassler

life and work

Jürg Hassler was the son of Rolf Hassler and Marianne Hassler-Kirsch and grew up in Zurich. As a teenager he met the sculptor Hans Josephsohn on his daily way to school . To the displeasure of the father, who would have liked to see his son on an academic career, Hassler became a student and assistant to Josephsohn after graduating from high school .

From 1958 to 1960 Hassler attended the Vevey School of Photography . He then worked as a stonemason in Geneva and the surrounding area for a year until he left Switzerland in 1961 to work as a freelance sculptor in Naples . However, under the strong impression of his teacher, spiritual father and friend Josephson, Hassler soon found his own sculptural attempts to be epigonal , so that he returned to Switzerland after a year.

In the following years he worked as a freelance photo reporter for the Tages-Anzeiger and the Neue Berliner Illustrierte, as well as a theater photographer for several productions by Benno Besson . He was also politically active, including against the war in Vietnam and for the liberation struggles in Africa.

Filmmaking career

From 1967 to 1968 Hassler took film courses 1 and 2 at the Zurich School of Applied Arts . Almost at the same time he made his first film about the youth riots in Zurich in the summer of 1968 ( Globuskrawall ), which marked the beginning of the 1968 movement in Switzerland. The political documentary entitled riot , published in 1970, made the activist and filmmaker Hassler known throughout Switzerland. But his life was always characterized by extreme contrasts. He toured Europe and Asia as a nightclub artist with his later first wife Simone. From this marriage the daughter Marem emerged, who now works as an actress.

In the mid-1970s Hassler began his second feature film about his role model Josephsohn. He linked the film Josephsohn, Stone of Stuff with his desire for 'purification'. The revolutionary goals that were propagated in the riot had remained too abstract and too superficial for him. He complained that there had been no real exchange between the rebellious youths and students and the rest of the population. His goal now was to fill the ideological concepts with content. For Hassler, Josephsohn embodied wholeness and depth of experience.

This tendency continued in the film Which pictures, little angels, wander through your face? (1986) with Ursula Looser. In addition to these, Hassler made other films such as Gösgen (1986), a film about the popular movement against nuclear power plants , or the short film Les Débordants (1990), a kind of counter- story to Swiss films , especially about extreme climbers who fell suicide .

Hassler has played a key role in several milestones in Swiss film history. These include films such as Züri brännt (1980) about the youth riots in Switzerland , Dani, Michi, Renato & Max (1987) by Richard Dindo and the award-winning films by Thomas Imbach , with whom he has worked regularly since the early 1990s. He has been working as a cameraman for a long time with the African filmmaker Saint Pierre Yaméogo .

Back in sculpture

In addition to his film projects, Hassler has also found his way back to sculpture . He has been working on chess objects for several years. In doing so, Hassler not only dissolves the classic black and white division, but also the conventional figures that transform into symbolic signs. The game also loses its two-dimensionality. Only the rules remain untouched. Within this, however, there are no limits to the possible forms of expression. This creates a new, multi-layered level that extends the limits of chess and adds a new playful quality to the game. Thinking should expand with the complexity of the game and contribute to the intellectual development that the complexity of today's world requires.

The works created so far were first presented to a larger audience in 2008/2009 in the Basel Museum Tinguely under the title MATTOMATT .

Hassler lives and works today in Küsnacht near Zurich and in Paris , where his second wife Josette and their son Yoni live.

Filmography

As a director

  • 1970: riot
  • 1971: Pour un center autonomous
  • 1977: Josephson, stumbling block
  • 1978: Gösgen. A film about the popular movement against nuclear power plants
  • 1986: What images, little angels, wander through your face?
  • 1987: Vous oublierez, vous oublierez ...
  • 1990: Les Débordants
  • 1998: Nano Babies

As a cameraman

  • 1967: Una vita normal , directed by Luc Yersin
  • 1980: Züri brännt (co-camera)
  • 1983: Max Haufler. Der Mute (video camera), directed by Richard Dindo
  • 1985: El Suizo - Un amour en Espagne (co-camera), director: Richard Dindo
  • 1986: A certain Josette Bauer (co-camera), director: Uli Meier
  • 1987: Dani, Michi, Renato & Max , directed by Richard Dindo
  • 1989: Lüzza's Walkman , director: Christian Schocher
  • 1989: Ghosts & Guests. In Memoriam Grand Hotel Brissago (co-camera), director: Isa Hesse-Rabinovitch
  • 1990: hinterland. A father-son story , directed by Dieter Gränicher
  • 1990: Laafi. Tout va bien , directed by S. Pierre Yaméogo
  • 1991: Perfect Life (co-camera), director: Véronique Goël
  • 1993: Wendemi, l'enfant du bon dieu , directed by S. Pierre Yaméogo
  • 1994: Well Done , directed by Thomas Imbach
  • 1996: Return to Paradise (co-camera), directed by Richard Dindo
  • 1997: Ghetto , director: Thomas Imbach
  • 2001: Happiness is a Warm Gun , directed by Thomas Imbach
  • 2002: The Forger , Director: Johannes Flütsch
  • 2002: Happy Too , directed by Thomas Imbach
  • 2002: Moi et mon blanc , directed by S. Pierre Yaméogo
  • 2005: Delwende , directed by S. Pierre Yaméogo
  • 2006: Lenz , director: Thomas Imbach
  • 2007: I was a Swiss Banker , director: Thomas Imbach
  • 2011: Passion Despair , directed by Steff Gruber

As a film editor

  • 1993: Ur-Musig , directed by Cyrill Schläpfer
  • 1993: Dance of the Blue Birds , directed by Lisa Fässler
  • 1993: Well Done (co-cut), director: Thomas Imbach
  • 1996: A propos de Joye , director: Isolde Marxer
  • 1997: Ghetto (co-cut), director: Thomas Imbach
  • 1998: Tumult im Urwald (co-cut), director: Lisa Faessler
  • 2001: Happiness is a Warm Gun (co-cut), director: Thomas Imbach
  • 2002: Happy Too (co-cut), director: Thomas Imbach
  • 2006: Lenz (co-cut), director: Thomas Imbach
  • 2007: I was a Swiss Banker , director: Thomas Imbach

As a screenwriter

Other artistic collaboration

Exhibitions

  • Scacchi Matti , Centro Culturale Svizzero, Milan 2003
  • MATTOMATT. Chess objects by Jürg Hassler , Museum Tinguely , Basel 2008/09
  • Senseo , Lichthof University of Zurich 2010

Stage design

  • Le roi des aulnes , Thêatre de la Tempête, Paris 1970
  • Frankenstein , Maison de la culture, Bourges 1989

Awards

  • 1970: Quality bonus for riot
  • 1977: Quality premium for Josephson, stone of the stumbling block
  • 1977: Zurich Film Prize for Josephson, stone of the offensive
  • 1987: Zurich Film Prize for Which pictures, little angels, wander through your face?
  • 1990: Quality award for Les Débordants
  • 1993: Quality premium cut for Dance of the Blue Birds
  • 1997: Zurich Film Prize for the “visual design” of Ghetto

literature

  • Villain, Jean , reunion with Marianne , Leipzig 1966. (Photos: Jürg Hassler)
  • François Nourissier , Les Français , Lausanne 1968. (Photos: Henri Cartier-Bresson and Jürg Hassler)
  • Villain, Jean / Hassler, Jürg, Switzerland - Paradise after the Fall , Leipzig 1969. (Photos: Jürg Hassler)
  • Holz, Hans Heinz , Hans Josephsohn , Zurich 1981.
  • Boillat, Valerie et al. a. (Ed.), On the value of work: Swiss trade unions - history and stories , Zurich 2006. (Photos: Jürg Hassler et al.)
  • Museum Tinguely (ed.), MATTOMATT. Chess objects by Jürg Hassler , Basel 2008.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thêatre de la Tempête (French WP)
  2. ↑ Maison de la culture (French WP)
personal data
SURNAME Hassler, Juerg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss photographer, sculptor, screenwriter, film director, cameraman and film editor
DATE OF BIRTH September 4, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich