Otto Künzli

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Otto Künzli (* July 1948 in Zurich ) a Swiss goldsmith and was a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich .

Life

From 1965 Künzli attended the metal class at the Zurich School of Design and completed his training as a goldsmith in 1970. After working in various workshops in Zurich, Bern and Munich , he attended Hermann Jünger's jewelry class at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1972 to 1978 . In 1975 he moved permanently to Munich.

He held his first solo exhibition in 1979 in the jewelry museum in Pforzheim . Since then he has given around 50 solo exhibitions around the world. In 1986 he was given a teaching position at the New Paltz College of the State University of New York , and in 1988 at the Royal College of Art in London . In addition, there were lecture series in the United States and Canada in 1986/87/90, and in 1990 lectures and workshop projects in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore at the invitation of the Goethe Institute . Since 1993, lectures and workshops have been held regularly at Hiko Mizuno College in Tokyo. In 2015, his visits to Japan resulted in a large retrospective solo exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum .

In 1991 he took over from Hermann Jünger the chair for goldsmithing and the class for jewelry and equipment at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, which he headed until 2014. He also lectured at established teaching institutions around the world. From 2008 to 2012 he was visiting professor at the Royal College of Art , London. Works by Künzli have been included in over 50 museums, public collections and important private collections around the world.

He is married to Therese Hilbert, also a jewelry artist, and the father of Miriam Künzli, a photographer.

plant

Künzli is one of the most important international representatives of designer jewelry . In his work, the technical as well as the artistic side are equally important. There is also a sociopolitical component. In Künzli's bangle “Gold makes blind”, for example, the social self-labeling through jewelry is deliberately negated, in that the precious gold that is present is hidden in a black rubber tube, which forms the actual bracelet. Other of his works are primarily about the wearer experiencing their own body through these objects and consciously experiencing the object for themselves. For example, Künzli's work “Ball for the Armpit” consists of a hollow golden ball that is carried under the armpit, i.e. invisibly, and thereby challenges a certain posture.

In addition, Künzli's works are characterized by subtle humor and the desire for pointed titles ("1 meter love", "Gold is blind"). He seeks and finds inspiration in many places, including in works of art of minimalism , in products of the decorative arts such as wallpaper and picture frames, in popular picture media such as comics and postcards or in unusual materials such as the extremely hard Japanese holm oak charcoal (Binchō-tan), from which he worked gently rounded rings. The individualized shape of the speech bubbles in Japanese mangas was a starting point for his series of works “Fukidashi”, which he further developed in a variety of ways.

Künzli overcomes conventional notions of goldsmith jewelry. This shows u. a. in thematic work groups, the staging of his jewelry objects as an installation and in his conceptual approach. In this regard, his chain of gold wedding rings that was worn earlier became famous. Künzli had advertised looking for people who would give him the rings and tell the life stories associated with them. Charged with history and stories, the chain turned out to be unbearable and therefore unbearable. Another striking work are Künzli's badges in the form of small red dots, which are usually stuck next to sold works of art. Such a badge turns the person wearing it into a valued work of art.

While the name of the goldsmith plays a subordinate role in conventional jewelry design, the design achievement of a particular jewelry artist is acquired and worn in the case of designer jewelry. Some of Künzli's pieces of jewelry are marked with his signature. This can be read vertically as the number eight (Italian “otto”) and horizontally as the mathematical symbol for infinity .

Künzli's artistic impact was also evident in his national and international appeal as a professor of jewelry design. Among those who studied with him, there were later successful artists such as Karl Fritsch, Karen Pontoppidan (currently a professor in this class), Norman Weber, Lisa Walker, David Bielander and Jiro Kamata.

Awards and grants (selection)

Collections (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Congratulations for Professor Otto Künzli on his 65th birthday , Rathaus Umschau, issue 136, July 19, 2013, p. 3.
  2. ↑ Otto Künzli , Galerie Wittenbrink, accessed on May 16, 2014.
  3. ↑ Prof. Otto Künzli, Academy of Fine Arts Munich ( Memento from May 16, 2014 in the web archive archive.today )
  4. ↑ Grand Prix Design 2010 ( Memento from May 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Federal Office of Culture , 2010.
  5. ↑ Design Award of the Federal Republic of Germany 2010. Silver. , The New Collection , 2009.
  6. ↑ Ring of honor for Otto Künzli - provocateur of jewelry art , Frankfurter Rundschau, May 25, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Künzli, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss goldsmith and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH July 1948
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich