Paul Wiedmer

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Paul Wiedmer (born February 1, 1947 in Burgdorf , Switzerland ) is a Swiss contemporary artist . He mainly works as a sculptor , with “ fire and iron ” being one of the media he mainly uses and being characteristic of his sculptures and projects.

Live and act

Paul Wiedmer completed an apprenticeship as a locksmith in Burgdorf from 1963 to 1966 . From 1967 to 1973 he was a student of Bernhard Luginbühl and assistant to Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle . In 1969 he began working on the group sculpture Monstre de Milly (with, among others, Tinguely, Luginbühl, Saint Phalle and Daniel Spoerri ) at Milly-la-Forêt in France . In 1970 he set up his own studio in Burgdorf and began working as a freelance artist in 1973. In 1973 and 1974 he worked in the USA .

In 1975 he created his first typical iron sculptures, which he often combined with kinetic fire effects. In 1980, Wiedmer co-founded the Burgdorf Sculptors Symposium . In 1981/1982 he was a member of the Istituto Svizzero di Roma in Rome and in 1982 worked in his own studio near Rome. 1989/1990 he was on a working holiday in Austria Lilienfeld and 1991 in China's Beijing , where he the courtyard of the Swiss Embassy Beijing Fire created.

In 1997, Wiedmer founded the La Serpara sculpture garden , which is located in Italy near Orvieto near Civitella d'Agliano . The garden is supplemented annually by the installation of further sculptures and now contains numerous works by Wiedmer and other well-known artists.

From 1998 to 2002, Wiedmer was the artistic director of the Artcanal project . In 1999 he took on a visiting professorship at Svenska Yrkeshögskolan in Nykarleby in Finland and worked there as artist in residence in 2000 . In 2002 he went to Seoul in South Korea to work and in the same year received a grant from ETANENO , the “Museum and Atelier in the Bush” in Otjiwarongo in Namibia . In 2003 he worked on the Bench Marking Projects in Seoul. From 2005 to 2007 he was artistic director of Artcanal -Nachfolgeprojekts fluid Artcanal International , an international cooperation project where artists exhibit their installation on rafts presented in a canal or river.

Since 1975, Wiedmer had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Switzerland as well as in Austria, Finland, Germany, South Korea and other countries.

His works are "in the tradition of European iron sculpture" and are "conceptually largely shaped by the leitmotif of fire". He began with "fire horns" and "bushes of fire", where the "iron plays around the licking flame with organic structures". Later, his sculptures were more strictly and more strongly oriented towards geometric forms, as in his series Roma di Nero and in his steles , in which he worked with metal as well as volcanic rock. However, Wiedmer also created architectural sculptures, such as bridges and iron temples, all of which were "enlivened by the licking, blazing, hissing fire, which makes them appear attractive as well as repellent". (Hans Baumann)

Paul Wiedmer lives and works in Civitella d'Agliano and in Burgdorf.

Solo exhibitions (selection)

Works in public collections (selection)

Literature (selection)

  • Museum Tinguely Basel (Ed.): Paul Wiedmer. Fire and iron . Kehrer, Heidelberg 2009, ISBN 978-3-86828-092-0 .
  • Hans Baumann u. a. (Texts); Association Artcanal, Le Landeron / Switzerland (Ed.): Fluid Artcanal International 06/07. An intercontinental artistic project 2006/2007, Switzerland / South Korea / Germany . Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Nuremberg 2006, ISBN 978-3-938821-57-2 . (Text in German, English, French and Korean)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Information about Paul Wiedmer ( memento of June 4, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the La Serpara project (accessed on August 19, 2009).
  2. ↑ See the website of the sculpture garden La Serpara (see web links).
  3. ↑ Selection of solo and group exhibitions by Paul Wiedmer ( memento of April 29, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the La Serpara project (accessed on August 19, 2009).
  4. ↑ Description of the work of Paul Wiedmer, with slide show ( Memento from April 29, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) by the art critic Dr. Hans Baumann , Burgdorf, Switzerland (accessed August 19, 2009).
personal data
SURNAME Wiedmer, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss artist and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH February 1, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Burgdorf