Serge Stauffer

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Serge Stauffer (born June 8, 1929 in Lucerne as Werner Oscar Stauffer; † September 17, 1989 in Zurich ) was a Swiss artist and art mediator. He was co-founder of the F + F school for experimental design in Zurich and translator of Marcel Duchamp's texts . Stauffer can be seen as a pioneer of art as research.

life and work

From 1952 to 1955, Stauffer trained as a photographer with Hans Finsler and Alfred Willimann at the Zurich School of Applied Arts (KGSZ) . During this time he met his future wife Doris Kloetzer .

Stauffer gained first notoriety through his translation of the play Die kahle Sängerin by Eugène Ionesco , which was written in 1956 a. a. premiered with Daniel Spoerri in the Klein-Theater Bern and was published in 1959 by Luchterhand Verlag.

Stauffer worked as a photographer in Josef Müller-Brockmann's graphic studio and returned to the KGSZ in 1957 as a teacher of photography and experimental photography. 1957 to 1964 he designed exhibitions, catalogs and posters, and worked a. a. participated in the exhibition Documentation about Marcel Duchamp (1960) organized by Max Bill at the Kunstgewerbemuseum Zurich .

Stauffer's early artistic work includes the play object Jardin public , which was published in 1961 at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. From 1962 to 1964 he conducted extensive studies of optical illusion effects on the basis of geometric drawings and photograms, which he called geometric-optical illusions (goT).

In 1964, Stauffer and Hansjörg Mattmüller prepared the establishment of an artistic experimentation class. In 1965 it started operating as the Form and Color (F + F) class at the KGSZ. After the teamwork course introduced by Doris Stauffer was to be abolished again at F + F and the continuation of the class was otherwise made "dependent on unacceptable conditions", the class and teachers in the class council decided in March 1970 to dissolve class F + F and termination of the lecturer. Together, Bendicht Fivian, Peter Gygax, Peter Jenny, Hansjörg Mattmüller, Doris Stauffer and Serge Stauffer transferred the F + F class to the private art school F + F School for Experimental Design in January 1971.

As Tom Holert describes, artists such as Allan Kaprow , Nam June Paik , Asger Jorn and the philosopher and artist Piero Simondo have been looking for opportunities for artistic research since the 1950s and 1960s. Even during his time as a teacher at the KGSZ, Stauffer worked on concepts for art as research. In 1968 he gave a lecture on the artist as a researcher at a conference of the Swiss Werkbund SWB, and under the title Theses on Art as Research , he presented his ideas in 1976 during an F + F exhibition in the foyer of the Kunsthaus Zürich . From 1978–79 Stauffer held a teaching position on “Art as Research” at the art history department of the University of Zurich . Finally, the article Art as Research was published in 1981 in the publication Genie there - The Seventies at the F&F School for Experimental Design.

From 1956 to 1967 Stauffer exchanged letters with Marcel Duchamp and researched his work. In 1973 Stauffer published the book Ready Made - 180 sayings from interviews with Marcel Duchamp and, together with Theo Ruff, published Die Schriften in 1981 - texts published during his lifetime with translated and facsimile texts by Marcel Duchamp . The volume Marcel Duchamp: Interviews and Statements, which he designed, was published posthumously in 1992 .

Stauffer had a lifelong friendship with the Swiss artist and poet André Thomkins , which resulted in an extensive correspondence. This friendship is documented in the 1985 Thomkins monograph Oh! Cet echo! .

Serge and Doris Stauffer's archive is located in the graphic collection of the Swiss National Library in Bern, the holdings are accessible via HelveticArchives . Another part of Serge Stauffer's estate is in the Duchamp cabinet of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart . Stauffer's work and his work on “Art as Research” are also the subject of a research project launched in 2011 at the Institute for Contemporary Art at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).

Works

  • 1952: oT (glass music) , composition on tape, 10 min (together with Doris Stauffer)
  • 1955: Bishop. Rosellina, Markus Daniel , thesis photography with Hans Finsler, Zurich School of Applied Arts, as atmosphere with Werner Bischof , BIGA diploma, folder with 12 photo panels, 23 × 23 cm
  • 1955–1957: Post Card - ready made in Europe , photo postcards
  • 1960: Jardin public , combination game with four cards, 10 × 10 cm, edition at Moderna Museet Stockholm for the exhibition rörelsen i konsten , 1961
  • 1962–1964: geometric-optical illusions (goT), artistic study
  • 1963: La matière grise (formerly Nuit blanche ), constructive picture in the shape of a circle, graphite on cardboard, 100 × 100 cm
  • 1969: oT (Volano) , two films in parallel projection , normal 8, without sound, 9:22 min (together with Hansjörg Mattmüller)
  • 1968: b-room , with an introduction by Giovanni Blumer, graphic edition, four sheets, 25 × 25 cm
  • 1971–1979: serge stauffer public library , artist book series with his own texts, three copies each
  • 1973: mouthpieces , series of 20 photographs, 8 × 12 cm
  • 1977: body-music , several compositions on tape
  • 1979: at one ear blind - project a world language , passing game to make yourself, in: slingshot no. 3
  • 1979: Work for Roman , series of 12 photographs on slides and 2 sheets of text, for Roman Signer

Editing and translations

  • Eugène Ionesco: The bald singer . Translated from the French by Serge Stauffer. In: Eugène Ionesco: Plays. Volume 1. Luchterhand, Darmstadt 1959.
  • [Serge Stauffer, ed.]: Friends + friends. friends + fruend. karl gerstner , diter rot , daniel spoerri, andré thomkins and friends . Published for the exhibition “fruend, friends, freunde und freund”, Kunsthalle Bern and Düsseldorf . Edition Hansjörg Mayer , Stuttgart 1969.
  • Hans-Rudolf Lutz , Hansjörg Mattmüller, Serge Stauffer (eds.): Experiment F + F. 1965-1970. Verlag HR Lutz, Zurich [1970].
  • Marcel Duchamp: Ready Made! 180 sayings from interviews with Marcel Duchamp . Edited by Serge Stauffer. Regenbogen Verlag, Zurich 1973.
  • Marcel Duchamp: The writings. Volume 1. Texts published during his lifetime . Translated, commented and ed. by Serge Stauffer. Regenbogen-Verlag, Zurich 1981.
  • André Thomkins, Serge Stauffer: Correspondance 1948–1977 . Transcription et montage by Serge Stauffer. Stuttgart, Edition Hansjörg Mayer, London 1985.
  • Serge Stauffer: Marcel Duchamp. Interviews and statements . Collected, translated and annotated by Serge Stauffer. Edited by Ulrike Gauss . Graphic Collection Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; Edition Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit 1992.

Articles and book contributions

  • Style history of the film. In: Hans Fischli, Willy Rotzler: The film. History, technology, design elements, meaning . [Exhibition catalog]. Kunstgewerbemuseum, Zurich 1960. o. P.
  • «A Postman's Dream». [Ferdinand Cheval and his Palais Idéal in Hauterives, FR]. In: du, Kulturelle Monatsschrift , 21st year, no. 247, September 1961. P. 47f. doi : 10.5169 / seals-293844
  • “100 questions” [to Karl Gerstner, Dieter Roth, Daniel Spoerri, André Thomkins]. In: Karl Gerstner u. a. (Ed.): Friends + friends, friends + fruend . Published for the exhibition Fründ, friends, Freunde und Freunde in the Kunsthalle Bern and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Edition Hansjörg Mayer, Stuttgart 1969. o. P.
  • Art as research . In: There is genius. The seventies at the F&F School for Experimental Design . Edited by Gerhard Johann Lischka with the assistance of Hansjörg Mattmüller. Betzel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1981. pp. 61-92.
  • "L'homme le plus sérieux du monde". Marcel Duchamp as a chess player. In: du. The art magazine . no. 1, 1982. pp. 62-65. doi : 10.5169 / seals-304291
  • Letter. In: André Thomkins: Oh! Cet echo! André Thomkins to Serge Stauffer, documents of a friendship with Echo. [Complete catalog of the Serge Stauffer collection with works by André Thomkins]. Edition Hansjörg Mayer, Stuttgart / London 1985, pp. 41–59.
  • track liliane. In: Liliane Csuka : Pictures. Drawings. [Self-published, Zurich 1985], o. P.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. [Serge Stauffer]: Autobiography. In: Marcel Duchamp: Interviews and Statements. Collected, translated and annotated by Serge Stauffer, ed. by Ulrike Gauss . Stuttgart: Graphische Sammlung Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 1992. p. 243f, here p. 243.
  2. ↑ See Hans-Rudolf Lutz, Hansjörg Mattmüller, Serge Stauffer (eds.): Experiment F + F 1965-70. Zurich: Verlag HR Lutz, [1970].
  3. ↑ See Lutz u. a., 1970, o. S. (Pappelmann-Repport, letter of termination of class F + F of March 13, 1970).
  4. ↑ See Stauffer 1992, p. 244.
  5. ↑ Cf. Tom Holert: Artistic Research: Anatomy of a Economy. In: Texte zur Kunst, no. 82, year 20, June 2011. pp. 38–63. Here p. 39/41.
  6. ↑ See Stauffer 1992, p. 244. Printed in: Hansjörg Mattmüller (ed.): F + F Zurich. The open art course. Bern: Benteli Verlag, 1991. pp. 252f.
  7. ^ Serge Stauffer: Art as research. In: There is genius. The seventies at the F&F School for Experimental Design. Edited by GJ Lischka, HJ Mattmüller. Frankfurt am Main: Betzel Verlag, 1981. pp. 61-92.
  8. ↑ See Institute for Contemporary Art IFCAR, project on Serge Stauffer, www.ifcar.ch
personal data
SURNAME Stauffer, Serge
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stauffer, Werner Oskar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss artist
DATE OF BIRTH June 8, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Lucerne
DATE OF DEATH 17th September 1989
Place of death Zurich