Peter Hutchinson

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Peter Hutchinson, 2009

Peter Hutchinson (* 1930 in London ) is an English-born American painter, country artist and conceptual artist .

Hutchinson is considered one of the pioneers of Land Art . His works are represented in the collections of the Center Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Basel, the National Gallery of Art in Washington and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Since 1981 he has lived and worked in Provincetown , Massachusetts.

Life

Hutchinson grew up in the country in England. After completing his military service, he left England in 1953 to study in the United States. He completed his studies in Illinois in 1962 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. In the first years after completing his studies, he made trips to the west of the continent, the Caribbean, Mexico and England as well as to the vicinity of New York, where he lived from 1962 to 1981 and where he various objects in the country -Type installed.

Since the late 1960s, Hutchinson was friends with Bill Beckley , Dan Graham , Sol LeWitt , Dennis Oppenheim, and Robert Smithson . Von alles Oppenheim and Smithson became his close friends, whose concepts and ideas were also reflected in Hutchinson's work.

plant

After early concrete geometric and conceptual work, which u. a. Inspired by his friendship with Sol LeWitt and Tadaaki Kuwayama, he turned away from minimalist positions in favor of aspects of landscape and nature. As an artist of English origin, Hutchinson is rooted in the tradition of garden art , landscape painting and nature poetry, as embodied in the great English painters and poets of the 18th and 19th centuries such as John Constable , William Wordsworth and William Blake . In this context, Hutchinsons Land Art takes on an unmistakably unique character. Unlike protagonists of land art like Robert Smithson or Michael Heizer , whose concepts manifest themselves through extensive interventions in nature, Hutchinson focuses on the one hand on temporary processes of changes in nature, both on growth, development, and crystallization as well as on theirs Putrefaction and decay, on the other hand, he directs the collector's gaze to the landscape, from which he integrates selected pieces into his work. While the great English horticultural architects of the 19th century worked on the creation of an ideal natural landscape in their gardens and parks, Hutchinson developed visions of a utopian ideal landscape in his often large-format, colorful photo collages. Similar to his British artist colleagues Richard Long or Hamish Fulton , he exported old conventions of landscape painting from the canvas into real nature.

Country Art

Hutchinson's land work begins in the 1960s. A first action took place in the waters around Tobago , when he attached sacks filled with chopped gourds to a rope at regular intervals and anchored the rope to a coral reef. The gases created by the decomposition process produced volatile patterns on the ocean surface.

Thrown Rope , Sculpture Bank , Remagen

The following year he climbed the Paricutín volcano in Mexico and placed a wreath of bread around the rim of the crater to observe the creative work of nature. As a result of the action of volcanic vapors and the corrosive activity of endemic bacteria, the pieces of bread were deformed and took on new shapes and changing flaming colors, a process that Hutchinson documented with the camera.

Assemblages

The fruit of his long journeys and his forays through almost untouched natural landscapes of high mountains, volcanoes or seashore are his case-like assemblages in which he subjects his finds and souvenirs to an apparently systematic order and presents them in showcases with the charm of old realities . His three-dimensional, colorful landscapes, which combine color-treated minerals, wood or other organic material with found objects from the rubble of our civilization, create sculptures of their own charisma in this context.

Collages

Hutchinson arranges excerpts from his photographs, which he took during his travels and later also while observing and documenting his own garden, into new, lush, ideal landscapes. Recordings of mountain scenery, natural and garden landscapes, of architecture, flora and fauna serve as the basic material for his colored panoramas or patchwork-like compositions, which can also be processed with oil pastels, gouache and colored pencils and which he accompanies with handwritten commentary.

Works (selection)

  • Prognosis Earth (Landscape Series) , 2005. Photo collages with gouache, oil pastel, ink and texts on cardboard
  • Peter Hutchinson. An Alphabet Book Written as Alliterative Narratives for Each Letter. Accompanying drawings by author. Provincetown 1993. Artist book .
  • Time , 1976; multi-part work from black and white and color photographs
  • Paracutin Volcano Project 1970, artist book

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 2009 Dreamed paradises . Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck , Remagen
  • 2005 Behind the Facts . Museum Fridericianum , Kassel
  • 2006 La Photographie écrite. 1950-2005. Center National d'Art et du Paysage - Vassivière et Limousin, Ile de Vassivière, France
  • 2004 Behind the Facts. Miró Foundation Barcelona; Museum, Porto, Portugal

literature

  • Peter Hutchinson, Thrown Rope: Essays by Bill Beckley and Carter Ratcliff , Princeton Architecturical Press, 2006, ISBN 1-56898561-4 .
  • Eric Cameron: Peter Hutchinson - From Earth Art to Story Art , In: Kunstforum Nr. 33, 1979.

Web links

Commons : Peter Hutchinson  - collection of images, videos and audio files