Meret Oppenheim

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Berlin memorial plaque on the house, Joachim-Friedrich-Strasse 48, in Berlin-Halensee
Meret Oppenheim, table with bird feet, 1972

Meret Elisabeth Oppenheim (born October 6, 1913 in Charlottenburg , today Berlin ; † November 15, 1985 in Basel ) was a German- born Swiss artist and poet . Together with André Breton , Luis Buñuel and Max Ernst, she was one of the most important representatives of surrealism . In addition to making numerous figures, statues and other kinds of art installations, she is also responsible for Man Ray's photographswho appeared in her picture cycle Érotique voilée in 1933 and earned her the reputation of the “muse of the surrealists”. Oppenheim also created photographs, objects, paintings, furniture, jewelry, performance art , fountains and poems.

Life

Meret Oppenheim was born in 1913 as the child of the German-Jewish doctor Erich Alfons Oppenheim and his Swiss wife Eva Wenger, a daughter of Lisa Wenger , their younger sister was the ethnologist Kristin Oppenheim . It was named after Gottfried Keller's Meretlein from the Green Heinrich . Despite her father's Jewish origins, Meret Oppenheim was raised as a Protestant . During the First World War , she moved with her mother to Delémont in the house of her grandparents. From 1918 to 1932 the family, which in the meantime had grown to three children, lived in Steinen near Lörrach near the Swiss border.

After completing elementary school, Meret Oppenheim attended secondary school in Schopfheim , a private school in Zell , the Rudolf Steiner School in Basel , the Moravian boarding school for girls in Königsfeld in the Black Forest and the secondary school in Lörrach . Her favorite subjects were German , history , drawing and natural history . The drawings in her maths notebook indicated her way early on, and she wanted to become a painter .

Meret Oppenheim: The green spectator (one who watches as another dies) (1933/1977). Duisburg , Kant Park

Her grandmother Lisa Wenger had already attended the art academy in Düsseldorf and was a painter and children's book author. So Meret Oppenheim came into contact with artists at an early stage, as well as with the writer Hermann Hesse , who was married to her aunt Ruth Wenger for several years. In her youth she made friends with the literature of Goethe , the Romantics, Gottfried Keller, Rilke and Hesse.

Through the son of the sculptor Carl Burckhardt's friend , Titus Burckhardt , Oppenheim came into contact with the Basel artists Walter Kurt Wiemken , Walter Bodmer , Otto Abt and Irène Zurkinden . She left school around 1931 and decided to become a painter. In May 1932 she went to Paris with her friend Irène Zurkinden . There she met Alberto Giacometti and Hans Arp , who were fascinated by their work and invited them to exhibit in the Salon des Surindépendants . In autumn 1933 she made the acquaintance of Max Ernst , with whom she had a love affair that lasted until the following year. Man Ray photographed her in 1933 in the picture cycle Érotique voilée , which earned her the reputation of the “muse of the surrealists”. During this time, in which she also frequented the circles of André Breton and Marcel Duchamp , a number of art objects were created. Among them were the Déjeuner en fourrure (“Breakfast in Fur”) from 1936 - a fur-covered coffee cup (with saucer and spoon) that was shown at the London International Surrealist Exhibition that same year - and Ma Gouvernante (“My Nanny”) by Alfred Barr jr. for the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In 1936 she also made fashion designs in order to bridge a financial drought. This was followed by a creative crisis. She returned to Switzerland, became a member of Group 33 and attended the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel (today: Basel School of Design ) for two years to improve her technical skills. In 1939 Oppenheim took part in an exhibition for fantastic furniture and showed, among other things, a table with bird feet. In 1949 she married Wolfgang La Roche. She lived with him in Bern until his death in 1967 . In 1954 her crisis was over and she moved into her own studio. In 1956 he created costumes and masks for Daniel Spoerri's staging of Picasso's play How to grab wishes by the tail .

Street sign in Basel
The Meret Oppenheim Fountain in Bern

Her intensive work began in 1958, and Oppenheim often resorted to sketches, drafts and ideas from her time in Paris. In 1967 she had a retrospective at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm . From 1972 she lived and worked alternately in Paris, Bern and in Carona TI in a holiday apartment. In 1974 and 1975 she had further retrospectives in the museums of Stockholm, Winterthur and Duisburg . In 1974 she received the Art Prize of the City of Basel . In 1981 a serigraph was published of her poems under the title Zanzibar, and this was followed by a similar work with the title Caroline .

In 1982 Meret Oppenheim was honored with the Grand Prize of the City of Berlin , and she took part in documenta 7 in Kassel. In 1983 the Meret Oppenheim fountain she created was inaugurated on Waisenhausplatz in Bern, and in 1985 she created a fountain sculpture for the Jardins de l'ancienne école Polytechnique in Paris. In 1984 a work by Meret Oppenheim appeared in the art revue TROU No. 4 , for the special edition she created the original graphic with the impression of her own hand.

Shortly before her death, she became a member of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. On November 15, 1985, the day of the opening of her book Caroline, Meret Oppenheim died.

She has reflected the role of women as muses as well as the feminine in the work of male artists .

In the Encyclopædia Britannica she is described as a Swiss artist of surrealism.

Artistic work

Meret Oppenheim worked with various media in surrealism. She took up everyday situations such as B. in the work “Breakfast in the Fur”, where she made cold coffee her subject. The work became the epitome of surrealism. Meret Oppenheim also created poetic works. As a schoolgirl she already created the work “X = Hase” or “Das Schulheft”, in which she asked: “If math equations had roots, where would the rabbits be?” Some of her poetic works are in the phonotheque in Lugano retrievable. She worked with the Cadavre Exquis technique used in Surrealism , which connects the conscious with the unconscious. In 2012 her drawings were found. These were scientifically evaluated in the winter 2019 edition of X-Tra magazine.

In 1997 the Meret Oppenheim Friends' Association was founded to make her work accessible to a broader public.

In a conversation in 1972 Oppenheim uttered the motto “Don't cry, work” (“Don't cry, work”). The German writer Rainald Goetz used the quote as a subtitle for his debut novel Irre (1983). It was printed on the spine of the first edition of the paperback by Suhrkamp and became a popular phrase.

Honors

In Basel, the construction of the passerelle at the SBB train station was completed in 2003 and the street below was named in her honor of Meret Oppenheim-Strasse. In 2019, the architects Herzog & de Meuron completed a high-rise there, which also bears their name ( Meret Oppenheim high-rise ). The Swiss Art Prize Prix ​​Meret Oppenheim is also named after her.

For her 100th birthday in 2013, a retrospective took place in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in her native Berlin, which ran from August 16, 2013 to January 6, 2014. On this occasion, Basel also honored the artist with many actions and exhibitions.

In July 2013, the Steinen school center, which consists of elementary, secondary and industrial schools, was named Meret-Oppenheim-Schulzentrum Steinen .

On October 6, 2014 , a Berlin memorial plaque was unveiled at her birthplace at Joachim-Friedrich-Strasse 48 in Berlin-Halensee .

Works (selection)

  • Déjeuner en fourrure (“breakfast in fur”). 1936, Museum of Modern Art , New York
  • Ma governess - my nurse - my nanny. 1936, Museum of Modern Art, New York
  • Le couple ("The couple")
  • Table with bird feet. 1939, privately owned
  • Miss Gardénia
  • The Squirrel
  • The spring festival
  • People on the street. Art Museum Bern
  • Enchantment. Art Museum Bern
  • The spiral (The course of nature). Sculpture fountain, Montagne Ste Geneviève, Paris
  • Illustrations for Lisa Wenger's Aber, aber Kristinli. Schweizerisches Jugendschriftenwerk 1935, SJW booklet No. 48. Reprint 2006, ISBN 3-7269-0520-0 .

Quotes

"Freedom is not given to you, you have to take it."

- Meret Oppenheim

literature

  • Ralf Beil: Artistic kitchen: food as art material from Schiele to Jason Rhoades. DuMont, Cologne 2002. ISBN 3-8321-5947-9 . Pp. 84-101.
  • Therese Bhattacharya-Stettler, Matthias Frehner (eds.): Meret Oppenheim. “With very little a lot”. Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2006, ISBN 3-7757-1746-3 .
  • Rita Bischof: On the work of Meret Oppenheim. Speech on the occasion of the funeral on November 20, 1985 in Basel. Excerpt from: The black messenger. Feminist texts 1977–1985. Supplement to jungle world , September 2014 (undated), p. 13f. Complete in: Catalog for the exhibition Merets Funken / Meret's Sparks , Kunstmuseum Bern 2012, pp. 40–48.
  • Rita Bischof: Forms of poetic abstraction in the work of Meret Oppenheim. In: Karin Rick (Ed.), The Sexual, Women and Art. Bankruptcy book 20 , Tübingen 1987, pp. 37-59.
  • Bice Curiger : Meret Oppenheim. Traces of survived freedom. Scheidegger & Spiess, Zurich 2002, ISBN 978-3-85881-136-3 .
  • Mind and feeling. Speech when receiving the Art Prize of the City of Basel. In: Catalog of the exhibition Galerie Levy, Hamburg. / In: Freibeuter # 1, Berlin 1979 / In: Marlis Gerhardt (Hrsg.): Essays by famous women. Insel, Frankfurt am Main 1997, ISBN 3458336419 , pp. 134-136.
  • Karoline Hille: Women's Games. Women artists in surrealism. Belser, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-7630-2534-3 .
  • Christiane Meyer-Thoss (Ed.) Notes 1928–1985: Dreams. Gachnang & Springer, Bern 1986, ISBN 978-3-906127-13-2 .
  • Christiane Meyer-Thoss (ed.): Meret Oppenheim: Book of ideas. Early drawings, sketches and drafts for fashion, jewelry and design. Photographs by Heinrich Helfenstein. Gachnang & Springer, Bern 1996, ISBN 978-3-906127-46-0 .
  • Christiane Meyer-Thoss (Ed.): Why I love my shoes. Insel Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-458-19374-6 ( Insel-Bücherei 1374).
  • Susanne Buckesfeld: Meret Oppenheim: A pleasant moment. Galerie Mäder, Basel 2013, ISBN 3-905-483-96-3
  • Lisa Wenger, Martina Corgnati (Ed.): Meret Oppenheim - Don't wrap words in poisonous letters. The autobiographical album "From Childhood to 1943" and unpublished correspondence. Scheidegger & Spiess Verlag, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-385881-375-6 .
  • Christian Fluri (Ed.), Simon Baur: Meret Oppenheim, An Introduction. Christoph Merian, Basel 2013, ISBN 978-3-85616-632-8 .
  • Galerie Krinzinger (ed.): Meret Oppenheim - Another retrospective. A different retrospective. Graphische Kunstanstalt Otto Sares, Vienna 1997, ISBN 3-900683-02-6 .
  • Heike Eipeldauer, Ingried Brugger, Gereon Sievernich (eds.): Meret Oppenheim, retrospective , exhibition catalog, [1] text (s) by Heike Eipeldauer, Christiane Meyer-Thoss, Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Elisabeth Bronfen, Isabel Schulz, Lisa Wenger a . a .; Hatje Cantz Verlag, Berlin, 2013, ISBN 978-3-7757-3510-0 , English edition ISBN 978-3-7757-3511-7 .
  • Isabel Schulz:  Meret Oppenheim. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-428-00200-8 , p. 567 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Editing: Oppenheim, Meret. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  • Meret Oppenheim in the Munzinger archive ( beginning of article freely accessible)
  • Ivonne Höfliger (Ed.): Group 33. Editions Galerie zem Specht, Basel 1983, ISBN 3-85696-006-6 .

Documentation

  • Daniela Schmidt-Langels: Meret Oppenheim - A surrealist on her own way. Kobalt Productions / SRF / ZDF, 2013 (55 min.)
  • Daniela Schmidt-Langels, Otto Langels: "Breakfast in fur" - The world of Meret Oppenheim. Deutschlandfunk 2013 (49 min.)

Web links

Commons : Meret Oppenheim  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikiquote: Meret Oppenheim  - Quotes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Meret Oppenheim. Retrieved October 26, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Your dream, love, is a masterpiece. (PDF; 983 kB), silvia-buol.ch, accessed on December 1, 2015.
  3. ↑ Man Ray's photographs by Meret Oppenheim, 1933 , manray-photo.com, accessed October 6, 2013.
  4. ↑ FN - Catalog, Detail. Retrieved October 26, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Meret Oppenheim | Swiss artist. Retrieved October 26, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Cult work: Le Déjeuner en fourrure. September 25, 2013, accessed on October 27, 2019 (Swiss Standard German).
  7. ^ Ingeborg Ruthe: Meret Oppenheim in the Berlin gallery. In: https://www.berliner-zeitung.de/kultur-vergnuegen/meret-oppenheim-bekommen-seltenen-auftritt-in-berliner-galerie-levy-li.1502 . Berlin gallery Levy, November 17, 2019, accessed on November 21, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Audio Files by Meret Oppenheim. In: https://www.fonoteca.ch/cgi-bin/oecgi4.exe/inet_fnbasesearch?SEARCH_LINE=Meret+Oppenheim&IDX_ZONE=&%24SUBMIT=Suchen&LNG_ID=GER&SEARCH_FLTR=R . Swiss National Sound Archives, accessed on November 21, 2019 .
  9. ↑ X-TRA. Retrieved December 14, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Meret Oppenheim - Stone woman made of stones. Retrieved October 26, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Germans with destination Paris - In the footsteps of Meret Oppenheim. In: Germans in Paris. June 23, 2016, accessed on May 14, 2020 (German).
  12. ↑ Sven Siedenberg, DER SPIEGEL: Rainald Goetz '"Irre": "Don't cry - work" - DER SPIEGEL - culture. Retrieved May 14, 2020 .
  13. ^ Retrospective in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin
  14. ↑ 100 years of Meret Oppenheim. Retrieved December 3, 2015 .
  15. ↑ Wolfgang Klingenfeld: How the school center got its name. Schulzentrum Steinen, October 31, 2016, accessed on August 3, 2017 .
  16. ↑ 5. Meret Oppenheim. Lyrikzeitung.com, October 2, 2014, accessed October 6, 2014 .
  17. ↑ Figure Déjeuner en fourrure
  18. ↑ Meret Oppenheim, Object (Fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon). Retrieved October 26, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Figure table with bird feet
  20. ↑ Acceptance speech 1975 on the occasion of the award of the art prize of the city of Basel , hatjecantz.de
  21. ↑ Deutschlandfunk.de, repeat, Das Feature , January 8, 2015: The world of Meret Oppenheim.
personal data
SURNAME Oppenheim, Meret
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Oppenheim, Meret Elisabeth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-Swiss surrealist artist and poet
DATE OF BIRTH October 6, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Charlottenburg , today Berlin
DATE OF DEATH November 15, 1985
Place of death Basel