Ulrich Bleiker

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Ulrich Bleiker (born March 14, 1914 in Wattwil ; † July 13, 1994 in Flawil ; resident in Ebnat-Kappel ) was a naive sculptor and object artist from Switzerland .

life and work

Ulrich Bleiker grew up as the fifth of 19 children in a mountain farming family on a remote farm. After finishing school, he first worked as a farmhand before running his own small estate. At the age of 25 he gave up farming and became a construction worker. At the age of 51 he had to change his job again for health reasons and from then on he worked as a factory worker in Herisau until he retired in 1979 . In 1965 he built his own little house in Mogelsberg . A year later he married the Spanish woman Dolores Martinez. The couple had two daughters.

Bleiker's artistic work began with the design of fountain troughs, which he occasionally provided with reliefs. In the late 1960s, he began to create toys for his daughters and gradually his figures, which he formed from cement, wire, iron and scrap materials, and some painted on, gradually became independent. His artistic work intensified after his retirement. His repertoire of figures includes animals and people, some of which - attached to a plate - form larger groups, such as alpine elevations or funerals. He also built houses and churches. All of his simply formed creations were "an expression of his admiration for rural life and nature". Today Ulrich Bleiker is considered to be an important sculptor “in the intermediate area between art brut and naive art”. "His [...] name stands for the typical primeval animals and figures, which today have a high collector's value and are unique".

A group of works by Ulrich Bleiker from the collection of Mina and Josef John acquired in 2014 is in the museum in the warehouse in St. Gallen . The Thurgau Art Museum also owns two of his works.

Exhibitions

  • 1988 Collection of the Foundation for Swiss Naive Art and art brut, St. Gallen government building (group exhibition)
  • 1992 Museum in the warehouse, St. Gallen (double exhibition)
  • 1996 Carol Bailly, Ulrich Bleiker, Claudine Goux, Kurt J. Haas, Hans Krüsi, Galerie am Platz, Eglisau (group exhibition)
  • 1996 Hans Krüsi and Ulrich Bleiker, Galerie a16, Zurich (double exhibition)
  • 1997 "Oh la vache". Art naïf suisse ne autour de la montagne magique du Säntis, Paris , Halle St-Pierre, Musée d'art naïf Max Fourny (group exhibition)
  • 1997 Contemporary art in small format, Galerie A6, Olten ; Galerie am Platz, Eglisau (group exhibition)
  • 2000 My friends, the unskilled masters, Art Museum of the Canton of Thurgau, Ittingen Charterhouse (group exhibition)
  • 2001 Between heaven and today. Visions, dreams, fantasies, Kunsthaus Langenthal (group exhibition)
  • 2005 State palaces and cement figures, Herrliberg Art House (double exhibition)
  • 2006 Esprit de la forêt, Halle St-Pierre, Paris (group exhibition)
  • 2006–2007 In the Alps, Kunsthaus Zürich (group exhibition)
  • 2008 Art Brut. The Collection de l'Art Brut meets the Museum im Lagerhaus / La Collection de l'Art Brut rencontre le Museum im Lagerhaus, Museum im Lagerhaus, St. Gallen (group exhibition)
  • 2011–2012 world collector. International contemporary outsider art, Art Museum of the Canton of Thurgau, Ittingen Charterhouse / Kunsthalle Erfurt / Musée d'art moderne Lille Métropole / Musée de l'Abbaye Sainte-Croix (group exhibition)
  • 2012 world collector. International contemporary outsider art (group exhibition)
  • 2012 world collector. International contemporary outsider art (group exhibition)
  • 2011 world collector. International contemporary outsider art,, Art Museum of the Canton of Thurgau, Kartause Ittingen (group exhibition)
  • 2015 The Mina and Josef John Collection, Museum im Lagerhaus, St. Gallen (group exhibition)
  • 2016–2017 cooling tour. Cow, art and curiosities from East and West, Appenzell House, Zurich (group exhibition)

literature

  • Peter E. Schaufelberger: Art brut - The language of the speechless. In: Swiss Art. 2, 1997, No. 1, pp. 23-31.
  • Simone Schaufelberger-Breguet: Ulrich Bleiker's garden (in Mogelsberg SG). In: Bodensee-Hefte. 38, 1987, No. 10, pp. 14-19.
  • Simone Schaufelberger-Breguet: The woman, the cow, the way. The cement sculptor Ulrich Bleiker (1914–1994). Appenzeller Verlag, Herisau 2000, ISBN 978-3-85882-300-7 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ulrich Bleiker at www.opuszwei.ch
  2. ↑ Ulrich Bleiker at www.outsiderkunst.ch .
personal data
SURNAME Bleiker, Ulrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss sculptor and object artist (naive art)
DATE OF BIRTH March 14, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Wattwil
DATE OF DEATH July 13, 1994
Place of death Flawil