Walter Giers

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Walter Adolf Giers (born May 10, 1937 in Mannweiler ; † April 3, 2016 in Schwäbisch Gmünd ) was a German light, sound and media artist. He is one of the pioneers of electronic art .

Life

Walter Giers lived in Schwäbisch Gmünd since 1960 . After an apprenticeship in steel engraving, he worked as a jazz musician from 1955. From 1959 to 1963 he completed his studies at the State College for Precious Metals in Schwäbisch Gmünd, which he graduated with a diploma as an industrial designer . In 1963 he founded his own office for industrial design (form and function) in Schwäbisch Gmünd. In 1992/93 he had a teaching position at the University of Design in Karlsruhe and was an associated artist at the Center for Art and Media Technology (ZKM) in Karlsruhe. In 1968 he started making art objects based on electronic circuits. Since 1985 Walter Giers has also developed lighting concepts for cities, since 1990 together with the designer Berthold Beuthe, who was born in Backnang in 1962 .

He worked u. a. with the communication educator Kurt Weidemann , the jazz musician Wolfgang Dauner and the film composer Mick Baumeister . In 2003 he received the Maria Ensle Prize of the Baden-Württemberg Art Foundation , in 2007 he was honored with the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany , and in 2011 with the Baden-Württemberg Culture Prize of the Volksbanken Raiffeisenbanken and the Baden-Württemberg Foundation .

Walter Giers died a few weeks before his eightieth birthday. His grave is on the Leonhard cemetery in Schwäbisch Gmünd in grave field L.

plant

Güglinger clock by Walter Giers, electronic clock with optical and acoustic effects, 1982/1983, Güglingen , Deutscher Hof.

Giers worked primarily in kinetic art , but also in light and sound art . What was new about Walter Giers' art was above all the inclusion of electronic components in his art objects, which in addition to their functional task, i.e. H. the generation of sounds and light, also regularly serve as design elements. In 1968, the first interactive object was the radio sculpture Mr. Brabbel , in which the recipient caused reactions in the object through the action of light or sound, which was the basic scheme for a large number of other works.

In addition, Giers used other media such as video, laser and holography in his objects. In his works, among other things, he addressed problems of how humans deal with the environment (e.g. by denouncing whaling methods), conflicts in the media society (indiscretions in journalism), psychological anomalies (mental illnesses) or how to deal with or abuse Religions. Mostly he worked with ambivalences and concealed the problems behind a visually attractive facade made of acrylic glass, behind which electric lamps (e.g. neon tubes), wires, memory chips, transistors, capacitors, transformers are hidden and integrated into the loudspeakers. However, there are also a large number of objects that are free of narrative content, such as light or light-sound objects in particular, which are characterized by changing play of colors, possibly by melodic background music.

In 1987 he equipped the fish-belly girder roof of Stefan Wewerka's pavilion for documenta 8 with a light installation.

Exhibitions and collections

Giers' works are in a variety of museums and collections, such as B. in the Municipal Museum Gelsenkirchen, the Center for Art and Media Technology (ZKM) and the Municipal Gallery in Karlsruhe, the Museum in the Prediger in Schwäbisch Gmünd, the Municipal Gallery in Sindelfingen , the Institute for Foreign Relations in Stuttgart (Federal Collection), the Museum of New Art in Freiburg im Breisgau, the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and Art in Stuttgart, the Museum Ritter in Waldenbuch, the Conrad electronics collection in Hirschau, the Allianz insurance collection, the Daimler collection in Stuttgart- Möhringen and the Marx Collection in Berlin. On the occasion of his death in 2016, the Gmünder Kunstverein opened the exhibition Concept. Held by chance with selected works by the artist.

literature

  • W. Giers: Electronic Art. Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-433-02258-5 .
  • L. Hünnekens in: Moving Image - Electronic Art. Munich / Stuttgart 1992, p. 44 ff.
  • IDEA Guide international des arts electroniques. Paris 1992, p. 264.
  • F. Rötzer in: International Art Forum. No. 122, 1993, p. 334 f.
  • H. Klotz: A new college for new arts. Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 3-89322-737-7 , p. 65.
  • Music and light. Wolfgang Dauner, Randi Bubat, Walter Giers. Ostfildern-Ruit 1996, ISBN 3-89322-320-7 (with CD).
  • H. Klotz (Ed.): Art of the Present. Munich / New York 1997, ISBN 3-7913-1835-7 , p. 104 f, p. 294.
  • A. Hünnekens: The moving viewer, theories of interactive media art. Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-87909-514-0 , p. 97 f.
  • Kinetic art. The collection of the Gelsenkirchen Municipal Museum. Heidelberg 1998, ISBN 3-89466-218-2 , p. 136 f.
  • RB Heer: Electronic Art = Concrete Art? In: dot20, Computer Art Fascination. Frankfurt am Main 2009, p. 26 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Walter Giers passed away: He was one of the great sons and creative minds of Gmünd. Rems-Zeitung, April 4, 2016, accessed April 4, 2016 .
  2. ↑ Culture Prize 2011: The winners have been announced. (No longer available online.) Baden-Württemberg Foundation, March 2, 2011, formerly in the original ; Retrieved July 12, 2011 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bwstiftung.de
  3. ↑ (PDF) Information on the exhibition concept random ( Memento from December 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Gmünder Kunstverein, Galerie im Kornhaus, September 16 to November 6, 2016
personal data
SURNAME Greed, Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Giers, Walter Adolf (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German light, sound and media artist
DATE OF BIRTH May 10, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannweiler
DATE OF DEATH 3rd April 2016
Place of death Schwäbisch Gmünd