Pyotr Kraska

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Presentation of Kraskas «No. 1 »in the« year 7 », Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich

Pjotr ​​Kraska, actually Peter Johannes Kraska, also known as Kraska rex (born February 22, 1946 in Zurich ; † September 5, 2016 ; resident in Adliswil ), was a Swiss action artist , writer , visual artist , critic of authorities and Zurich city ​​original .

In the late sixties he appeared, sometimes together with Dieter Meier , in experimental theater and in avant-garde shows that startled the bourgeoisie at the time. His book The Big Throw, which reflects on speaking and writing . One poem (1978/79) was partly enthusiastically discussed. In 1980 he declared himself “King of Zurich and Bilbao , ruler of the Zen and A-centric empires” and from then on fought a bitter but unsuccessful dispute about free travel on the Zurich public transport network .

Life

Kraska, the son of East Prussian parents, grew up as the third of four children in Oberleimbach (Adliswil). After graduating from the Appenzell-Extra-Rhodian canton school in Trogen , he became an actor . He later lived in Zurich's old town in Niederdorf .

Create and work

As an action artist

In 1966, Kraska began writing and performing experimental plays . He made his first public appearance on the occasion of the performance of Ladislav Kupkovič's Písmená ("Sprachlaute") by the Zurich Chamber Choir in Fred Barth's piece Forum Concert . In 1968 the 22-year-old founded the Wath-Tholl-Theater, with which he performed the darkroom play in the same year :

“ What can be admired in the non-stop two and a half hour darkroom piece is the concentration of the actors, the consistency with which the audience is alluded to that openly expressing incomprehension, but above all the virtuoso leadership of a - if one may say so - musical perceived arc to which the text is subordinated. […] His [Kraska's] problem is - and in this piece, in this nightmare, in any case angry, he chokes it out of himself - the lack of relationship, the groping in the pitch-dark. [...] Must this artistically inadequate examination of what may afflict a sensitive young man today, take place in public and on a stage? "

- Neue Zürcher Zeitung, June 16, 1968, p. 25.

In 1969 Kraska took part with the Wath-Tholl-Theater in the avant-garde show Underground Explosions , which was performed in Munich , Zurich and Cologne , among others , together with the rock groups Amon Düül and Guru Guru Groove , the Bayern Paul and Limpe Fuchs alias Anina with experimental primal scream music as well the Viennese performance artists Valie Export and Peter Weibel . The show, organized by the Zurich concept artist Dieter Meier and the Munich film activist Karlheinz Hein , culminated in the student revolt, pop revolt and avant-garde culture, and grew into a tangible scandal. Der Spiegel devoted a whole page to the occasion after the performance in the Munich Circus Krone , and in the Zurich Volkshaus it led to panic and chaos. Der Spiegel wrote about Kraska :

“The“ Wath Tholl ”theater of Zurich actor Pjotr ​​Kraska, 22. The group of twelve, aged between 16 and 24, a job between a student and a plumber, spent the winter in an Andalusian farm and honed their style.
The Kraska clan entered the Krone Circus with animal screams, attacked each other in combat ballets and ecstatic Blocksberg hugs. Kraska, who uses his pants as a notepad, wants to achieve “unity between mind and body”; when a spectator kissed a Kraska girl, she fell to the ground as if touched by lightning. "

- Der Spiegel, April 21, 1969, p. 194.

Even later, Kraska appeared as an action artist. For example, in 1982 he invited to a "simple monarchical-clerical celebration" on the Pestalozziwiese in Zurich , where Kristin T. Schnider was supposed to "let go", as was announced - apparently with little public success:

“Now Kristin T. Schneider is no longer black-haired and no longer a poet, but rather bald and, as one hears, the first court poet to Kraska's spiritual monarchy. And the actors pull away. The honored audience sinks back into the grass and into boredom. "

- Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 24./25. July 1982, pp. 31/32.

As a writer

From the 1970s, Kraska shifted increasingly to writing and worked as a publicist. In 1978/1979 his first book, The Big Throw, was published. A poem that was enthusiastically reviewed by some of the critics and reprinted in 2000:

« The big hit is a 'narrative' (246 pages) about writing, about the language itself, which is rare in the linguistic landscape of Switzerland and which has so far hardly been heard of reflexive density. [...] A virtuoso language network of beautiful Arcadian and Spanish sentences, from jargon, proverb, biblical form of language and metalinguistic stubbornness and stubbornness repeatedly brought back the throw before it could still hit. Sounds fall silent in meaning, profundity evaporates in letters: in every way language is driven out of language. but hollowness and fullness now fall back all the more into the words. […] Here there is no commitment to this or that, here is total commitment to the language. There is an intelligent and at the same time eloquent talent at work. "

- Neue Zürcher Zeitung, May 2, 1978, p. 38.

The novella Death in Naples followed in 1981, the novel The Hand in the Clong in 1982 , and Buddha smiles forever . Kraska also published several articles in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on bullfighting and flamenco .

As a visual artist

Kraska and Adrian Notz at Cabarett Voltaire, Zurich

He had an ambivalent relationship with the Kunsthaus Zürich . As a “contemporary representative of Dadaism ” he was allowed to design a showcase for the exhibition Dada Global (1994) ; In 2013 the Kunsthaus acquired two Swiss banknotes painted by Kraska, and the museum library owns a complete collection of court news . Conversely, the latter refused to include the “Königswappen” designed by Peter Fischli in the Fischli / Weiss retrospective, whereupon Kraska burned it in a public staging in front of the Kunsthaus.

Most recently, Kraska bequeathed his urn with the ashes to the Kunsthaus - a gift that was not accepted by the Kunsthaus.

As a «king» and critic of the authorities

Official royal news from the Crown
Kraska's “Arch of Triumph” for the entire transport network in the canton of Zurich

During the Zurich youth riots of 1980, Kraska declared himself "His Majesty King Kraska of Zurich and Bilbao, ruler of the Central and A-Centric Empire". During this time, he published the Crown's Official Court News every nine months . In this glossy magazine he printed, among other things, excerpts from his numerous disputes in court, wrote instructions for the production of blank stamp cards, glorified the Spanish bullfight and rounded off everything with numerous photographs of himself and his followers. In 2015 he laid down the “crown”.

In the eighties and nineties he quarreled with the Zurich transport company and the responsible city councilor, Jürg Kaufmann : The “king” took the right to travel without a ticket and declared himself a “green driver” (“in the service of the environment”) ) and fought a bitter dispute through all the courts until the Federal Supreme Court upheld a sentence of thirty days in prison in 1987 ; In a further trial, the Zurich District Court sentenced Kraska to three months in prison for “continuing to sneak a performance” to three months in prison. Kraska unsuccessfully sued Zurich City Councilor Jürg Kaufmann for “insulting”, since the latter described him in Bonus 24 as a “total nutcase” would have. Kraska's defense attorney was temporarily the politically committed attorney Barbara Hug, who also represented the “escape king” Walter Stürm , the “sprayer of Zurich” Harald Naegeli and the alleged terrorist Giorgio Bellini in court.

reception

As the quotations interspersed above show, Kraska's work and work was controversial. In a résumé, the Tages-Anzeiger wrote in 2014:

“In fact, together with Dieter Meier and other Dadaists, King Kraska took up what had moved the 1960s: the liberation from authority and bourgeois moral concepts. Today, the 67-year-old's art and topics are outdated. The fear of the citizens has degenerated into a fear of officials. "

- Tages-Anzeiger, June 26, 2014, p. 8.

His work as an artist faded into the background in the public perception, and from the 1980s his persistent fight for free use of public transport was at the center ("Schwarzfahrer-König"), which preoccupied all courts. For the observer , Kraska was therefore "a prominent example of the modern resistance type."

In the obituaries published in 2016, Kraska was drawn primarily as a city original.

Publications, artistic creation (selection)

Books

  • The big hit. A poem. [Stähli], [Zurich] [1978] and Keller & Wahl, Zurich 1979, ISBN 3-7194-0010-7 . - New edition at edition 8, Zurich 2000, ISBN 978-3-85990-061-5 .
  • Death in Naples. Novella. eco-Verlag, Zurich 1981 (Literatheke 10), ISBN 3-85637-045-5 .
  • The hand in the clong and Buddha smiles forever. Groundbreaking novel. eco-Verlag, Zurich 1982 (Literatheke 17), ISBN 3-85637-051-X .

items

  • (together with Krista Heuberger :) The noble lust for death. A report from the April Fair in Seville. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23./24. May 1981, pp. 84-86.
  • El grito desgarrador. The essence and fascination of flamenco culture. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 30./31. January 1988, pp. 86-88.

magazine

  • Official royal news from the Crown. Ed. By the Crown Commissioner for Press and Information [M. Walker], later from the Crown Ministry of Media [J. L. Keller], Stäfa and Zurich 1985–2015.

Creating art

  • 1968: Darkroom piece (in-house production with the Wath-Tholl-Theater) in Zurich.
  • 1969: Participation with the Wath-Tholl-Theater in the avant-garde show Underground Explosion in Munich, Zurich, Cologne a. a.
  • 1994: Participation in the Dada Global exhibition at the Kunsthaus, Zurich.
  • Dada handy - short + good and no Kraska - a Giacometti . Edited 50-franc note and edited 100-franc note (two framed collages), acquired in 2013 by the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft for the Kunsthaus Zürich.

literature

Lexicons

  • Anke Hees: Kraska, Pjotr ​​(Peter). In: German Literature Lexicon . Biographical-bibliographical manual. 3rd, completely revised edition. Supplementary volume V: Hermann - Lyser. Edited by Hubert Herkommer and Carl Ludwig Lang. Saur, Bern / Munich 1998, column 526.

Obituaries

Meetings

  • Henri R. Paucker: What's the matter? "The big hit" by Pyotr Kraska. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 7, 1979, p. 25 f.
  • Fritz Rumler: "Exhibitionists to the front." Spiegel reporter Fritz Rumler on the Munich “Underground Explosion”. In: Der Spiegel , April 21, 1969, p. 194 ( digitized version ).
  • Sigi Schär: Against boredom. S. M. Kraska holds court. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 24./25. July 1982, p. 31 f.
  • Wilfrid Spinner: Theater of Darkness. The art of getting the audience to play along. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, June 16, 1968, p. 25.
  • Christoph Wagner: "Underground Explosion." The war is taking place in the hall. In: WOZ. The weekly newspaper , April 24, 2009, p. ( online ).
  • Kurt Weisshaupt: words, sentences and spaces. Pjotr ​​Kraska in the Hürlimann Braustube, Zurich. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, May 2, 1978, p. 38.

Others

  • Philippe Doubt and others: They disrupted Switzerland. In: Tages-Anzeiger, June 26, 2014, p. 8.
  • Peter Zimmermann: The lese majesty. Councilor Kaufmann acquitted. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, March 11, 1992, p. 57.
  • ap: imprisonment for dodger- «king». In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 12, 1987, p. 46.
  • ap: Three months in prison for dodger-«king». In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, December 1, 1987, p. 54.
  • Arian Schmid: Official horrors: lonely fighters for a better world. In: Observer 1, 2000, p. 28 ( online ).

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b c d Ev Manz: Zurich's king is of this world. In: Tages-Anzeiger, September 9, 2016, p. 19 (online under the title The King of Zurich is dead ).
  2. ↑ According to Kraska's vehicle ID, shown (as an art object with the signature of Andy Warhol ) in the online version of Ev Manz: The King of Zurich is dead. The self-proclaimed monarch of the Limmat City, His Majesty King Pjotr ​​Kraska of Zurich and Bilbao, has died . In: Tages-Anzeiger online, September 8, 2016, p. 19.
  3. ↑ Anke Hees: Kraska, Pjotr ​​(Peter). In: German Literature Lexicon. Biographical-bibliographical manual. 3rd, completely revised edition. Supplementary volume V. Saur, Bern / Munich 1998, Sp. 526.
  4. ↑ Ev Manz: Zurich's King is of this world. In: Tages-Anzeiger, September 9, 2016, p. 19; Lorenz Steinmann: "Let people be noble, helpful and good!" In: Züriberg and Zurich 2, September 15, 2016, p. 20.
  5. ↑ a b Wilfrid Spinner: Theater of Darkness. The art of getting the audience to play along. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, June 16, 1968, p. 25.
  6. ↑ Christoph Wagner: "Underground Explosion." The war is taking place in the hall. In: WOZ. The weekly newspaper, April 23, 2009, p.
  7. ^ "Exhibitionists to the front." Spiegel reporter Fritz Rumler on the Munich “Underground Explosion”. In: Der Spiegel, April 21, 1969, p. 194.
  8. ↑ Sigi Schär: Against boredom. S. M. Kraska holds court. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 24./25. July 1982, p. 31 f.
  9. ↑ Kurt Weisshaupt: words, sentences and spaces. Pjotr ​​Kraska in the Hürlimann Braustube, Zurich. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, May 2, 1978, p. 38. - A review by Henri R. Paucker: What's the point? "The big throw" by Pjotr ​​Kraska in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of August 7, 1979, p. 25 f. then turned out to be negative.
  10. ^ Negative review of an earlier book version by Kurt Weisshaupt: About common and un-common things about Naples. Pjotr ​​Kraska in the literature panel of the city of Zurich. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, March 31 / April 1, 1979, p. 40.
  11. ↑ Pjotr ​​Kraska, Krista Heuberger: The noble pleasure in death. A report from the April Fair in Seville. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 23/24. May 1981, pp. 84-86; Pyotr Kraska: El grito desgarrador. The essence and fascination of flamenco culture. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 30./31. January 1988, pp. 86-88; Pyotr Kraska: The Picasso of Singing. On the death of José Monje Cruz. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, July 7, 1992, p. 9.
  12. ^ Annual report 2013 of the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft, o. O. [2014], pp. 47 and 91 ( online ).
  13. ↑ Death of Peter John Kraska rex in the Neue Zurcher Zeitung of 8 September 2016th
  14. ↑ In any case, there is no information ( online ) in the 2016 annual report of the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft .
  15. ↑ Philippe Zweifel and others: They disrupted Switzerland. In: Tages-Anzeiger, June 26, 2014, p. 8; Alois Feusi: The king is dead. Pyotr Kraska announces his own death in an obituary. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, September 9, 2016, p. 20.
  16. ↑ ap: prison sentence for dodger- «king». In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 12, 1987, p. 46; ap: Three months in prison for dodger-«king». In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, December 1, 1987, p. 54. - Ev Manz: Zurich's king is of this world. In: Tages-Anzeiger, September 9, 2016, p. 19 speaks of “white driver” in her obituary.
  17. ↑ ap: Three months' imprisonment for fare dodgers "king". In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 12, 1987, p. 46
  18. ↑ ap: prison sentence for dodger- «king». In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, December 1, 1987, p. 54.
  19. ↑ Peter Zimmermann: The lese majesty. Councilor Kaufmann acquitted. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, March 11, 1992, p. 57.
  20. ↑ Marcel Gyr: The defense attorney Barbara Hug has died. Politically motivated lawyer. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, September 20, 2005, p. 53.
  21. ↑ Philippe Zweifel and others: They disrupted Switzerland. In: Tages-Anzeiger, June 26, 2014, p. 8.
  22. ↑ ap: prison sentence for dodger- «king». In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 12, 1987, p. 46; ap: Three months in prison for dodger-«king». In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, December 1, 1987, p. 54.
  23. ^ Adrian Schmid: Official horror: Lonely fighters for a better world. In: Observer 1, 2000, p. 28.
  24. ↑ Alois Feusi: The king is dead. Pyotr Kraska announces his own death in an obituary. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, September 9, 2016, p. 20; Ev Manz: Zurich's king is of this world. In: Tages-Anzeiger, September 9, 2016, p. 19; Lorenz Steinmann: "Let people be noble, helpful and good!" In: Züriberg and Zurich 2, September 15, 2016, p. 20.
  25. ↑ Information according to the catalog of the Zurich Central Library .
  26. ↑ Information according to the catalog of the Zurich Central Library and the catalog of the Swiss National Library .
  27. ^ Annual report 2013 of the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft, o. O. [2014], pp. 47 and 91 ( online ); the names of the collages according to Lorenz Steinmann: "Let the person be noble, helpful and good!". In: Züriberg and Zürich 2, September 15, 2016, p. 20, where the wrong year of acquisition is given with “2014”.
personal data
SURNAME Kraska, Pyotr
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kraska, Peter Johannes; Kraska rex
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss action artist, writer, visual artist, critic of authorities and Zurich city original
DATE OF BIRTH February 22, 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Zurich
DATE OF DEATH 5th September 2016