Matto barefoot

Matto Barefoot (2013)

Matto Barfuss , bourgeois Matthias Huber (born June 5, 1970 in Sinsheim ) is a German artist , painter , photographer , filmmaker , conservationist and author . After being frequently referred to as the cheetah man in the media , he also uses this nickname.

On August 1, 2013, Matto Barfuss was appointed UN Decade Ambassador for Biodiversity by Federal Environment Minister Peter Altmaier .

Life

Matto Barfuss grew up with his parents Erna and Dieter Huber as Matthias Huber on an organic farm in Sinsheim in northern Baden .

Barfuss was already an artist when he was 12 years old. He regularly visited the Heidelberg Zoo to make thousands of sketches and won first prize in the international young artist competition. He was able to repeat this success twice more.

In 1984 Barfuss had his first solo exhibition , won other art prizes and received a. a. the UNESCO Photo Prize. In 1987 he started his art actions RockART . His focus was on the issues of socially critical consideration, environmental protection and provocative art actions.

1989 crossed Matthias Huber and René Wöfel as "Barefoot activists" and the shoes bearing Jürgen Schorr in 21 days, the Alps from Germany through Austria to Italy . The 260 km route led from Garmisch-Partenkirchen via Innsbruck and the Ötztal Alps to Merano . The campaign was intended to demonstrate that the wear and tear on the cornea on the feet is comparable to the erosion in the Alps. This so-called “extreme work of art” was distributed by ORF and RTL and received strong media coverage . Since “Matto” means crazy in Italian, Matthias Huber came up with the artist name Matto Barfuss.

At the beginning of May 1990 Barfuss opened his own gallery . On 150 m² of exhibition space in a residential building in Herrieden , Franconia , he showed around 80 oil paintings and around 90 watercolors and drawings. The subject of the exhibition was the idols of rock and pop music. In 1991 Europe's first music art gallery opened. Under the name Movis Musica , he presented the "evolution" of musical tones.

Nature and animal protection

Towards the end of the 1990s, Barefoot shifted more and more to nature and animal protection . The main areas of activity are in eastern and southern Africa . At first he worked in Kenya , later mainly Rwanda , Botswana , Namibia and Zambia were added.

In 1998 he lived in the Masai Mara , which continues the Tanzanian Serengeti savannah northwards in Kenya , for 25 weeks with a wild cheetah family . In the book My Cheetah Family with photos and paintings, he reported on the experiences. The photo book and the media coverage, including on television, made the author known to a wide audience. In the same year Barfuss founded the association Leben für Geparden . Then published other books of barefoot, and he began to slide shows to organize and own wildlife films on DVD to produce.

In 2000 Matto Barfuss moved to Freistett ( South Baden ) and opened his art house Galerie Matto Barfuss there . In this eco house he shows cross sections of his creative periods on 350 m².

As a result, Barefoot devoted himself to protecting cheetahs and other animal species, such as the mountain gorillas and lions . In 2003 he designed the wildlife textbook for Zambia; Financed by donations, it is made available to the schools there in order to sensitize the children to the natural wealth of their homeland and to motivate them to protect the wild animals.

On January 1, 2013 Barfuss began shooting the film about the female cheetah Maleika , which was released on October 12, 2017. The world premiere of the film was on October 4, 2017 in Berlin. With a view to the film project, Barfuss designed the Maleika fashion collection together with fashion designer Marc Cain .

Works

Books

• Life with cheetahs . Naturbuch-Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 978-3-89440-329-4 .
• Land of the cheetahs . Augustus, Augsburg 1999, ISBN 978-3-8043-7156-9 .
• My Cheetah Family . Lerner Publishing Group, Minneapolis 1999, ISBN 978-1-57505-377-6 (English).
• Secret africa . Verlag Pattloch, Augsburg 1999, ISBN 3-629-00164-5 .
• Cheetah dreams . Eulen Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 978-3-89102-457-7 .
• I was a cheetah . Staying with a wild cheetah family in the Serengeti. Moewig / Edel Verlag, Rastatt 2004, ISBN 978-3-8118-1901-6 .
• Among mountain gorillas . Matto barefoot on the way to the last mountain gorillas on earth. Franckh-Kosmos Verlag, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 978-3-440-10381-4 .
• Matto Barefoot: Barefoot in cheetah land . Ed .: Dieter Krone. Verlag Krone, Lünen 2006, ISBN 978-3-937485-71-3 .
• My elephant family . Verlag Krone, Lünen 2007, ISBN 978-3-940486-00-4 .
• In search of paradise . My life with cheetahs. Goldmann Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-641-01096-6 .
• ... with lions through Africa . Verlag Edition G, 2010, ISBN 978-3-9813503-0-2 .
• The cheetahs of the Kalahari . Verlag Edition G, 2012, ISBN 978-3-9813503-9-5 .

Movies

• 2017: Maleika

Web links

• Literature by and about Matto Barfuss in the catalog of the German National Library
• Internet presence of Matto Barfuss

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Matto Barfuss: Welcome. Retrieved January 14, 2013 . 
2. ↑ Matto Barfuss: About me. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on October 17, 2017 ; Retrieved October 25, 2017 . 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.  
3. ↑ My Cheetah Family . Minneapolis 1999 (English).
4. ↑ Life for Cheetahs: Welcome. Retrieved January 14, 2013 (club website). 
5. ↑ Matto Barfuss: About me. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on January 14, 2013 . 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.  
6. ↑ Among mountain gorillas . Stuttgart 2005.
7. ↑ ... with lions through Africa . 2010.
8. ↑ Matto Barfuss: Education for species protection. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; accessed on January 14, 2013 . 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.  
9. ↑ Maleika. Retrieved October 12, 2017 . 
10. ↑ Maleika. Premiere in Berlin . ( Online [accessed October 25, 2017]).
11. ↑ Discovering Maleika by Marc Cain - Marc Cain Blog . In: Marc Cain Blog . January 26, 2017 ( online [accessed October 25, 2017]).