Fritz Schwegler (7 May 1935 – 3 June 2014) was a German painter, graphic artist, sculptor and musician.
Life and work
Born in the
Swabia
Swabia ; german: Schwaben , colloquially ''Schwabenland'' or ''Ländle''; archaic English also Suabia or Svebia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany.
The name is ultimately derived from the medieval Duchy of ...
n town of
Breech
Breech may refer to:
* Breech (firearms), the opening at the rear of a gun barrel where the cartridge is inserted in a breech-loading weapon
* breech, the lower part of a pulley block
* breech, the penetration of a boiler where exhaust gases leave ...
near
Göppingen
Göppingen (Swabian: ''Geppenge'' or ''Gebbenga'') is a town in southern Germany, part of the Stuttgart Region of Baden-Württemberg. It is the capital of the district Göppingen. Göppingen is home to the toy company Märklin, and it is the bi ...
, Schwegler was first apprenticed as a joiner to his father. He then traveled through the whole of Europe for three years, where he visited 21 cities. As an artist, he first appeared as an iconoclastic, uncanny creator of image collages and spoken performances, entitled "Effeschiaden", "Effeschiadiana", "Effeschiaturen", "Moritafeln", "Zehnerschaften", "Viererreihen" and "Urnotizen", which were also accompanied by photographs and film sequences, but later he also made sculptures out of wood and produced a series of 1000 bronze sculptures.
Schwegler exhibited at the
documenta
''documenta'' is an exhibition of contemporary art which takes place every five years in Kassel, Germany.
The ''documenta'' was founded by artist, teacher and curator Arnold Bode in 1955 as part of the Bundesgartenschau (Federal Horticultural ...
s 5 and 8 in
Kassel
Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in northern Hesse, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel and the district of the same name and had 201,048 inhabitants in December 2020 ...
. In 1999 he received the
Hans Thoma
Hans Thoma (2 October 1839 – 7 November 1924) was a German painter.
Biography
Hans Thoma was born on 2 October 1839 in Bernau in the Black Forest, Germany. He was the son of a miller and was trained in the basics of painting by a painter of ...
Prize, and in 2003 he was awarded the
Bernhard Heiliger
Bernhard Heiliger (11 November 1915, Stettin – 25 October 1995, Berlin) was a German artist. He was considered "West Germany's foremost sculptor", and his large public artworks are a prominent presence in many German cities, especially Be ...
Award of Sculpture for outstanding achievements in the field of sculpture. According to the jurors,
Werner Spies Werner Spies (born 1 April 1937 in Tübingen) is a German art historian, journalist and exhibition organizer. From 1997 to 2000, he was a director of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Klaus Albrecht Schröder, director of the Albertina in Vie ...
,
Manfred Schneckenburger
Manfred Schneckenburger (1 December 1938 – 2 December 2019) was a German art historian and curator of modern and contemporary art. He was the curator of the ''documenta'' art exhibition twice, documenta 6 in 1977 and documenta 8 in 1987. He was ...
and Dominic van den Boogerd, "at the end of the 20th century," Schwegler "created a register of plastic art without comparison."
For three decades, Schwegler was a professor at the
Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
The Kunstakademie Düsseldorf is the academy of fine arts of the state of North Rhine Westphalia at the city of Düsseldorf, Germany. Notable artists who studied or taught at the academy include Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Magdalena Jetelová ...
, where he was in close contact with
Joseph Beuys
Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( , ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism, sociology, and anthroposophy. He was a founder of a provocative art mov ...
Thomas Schütte
Thomas Schütte (born 16 November 1954) is a German contemporary artist. He sculpts, creates architectural designs, and draws. He lives and works in Düsseldorf.
Education
From 1973 to 1981 Schütte studied art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf al ...
*Wolfgang Becker, Astrid Brock, eds., ''Fritz Schwegler: Effeschiadiana, Effeschiaden, Effeschiaturen, Moritafeln, Zehnerschaften, Viererreihen und Urnotizen''. Exhibition catalog. Stadt Aachen, Neue Galerie-Sammlung Ludwig, 19 Jan. - 10 February 1974.
*Joachim Heusinger von Waldegg, ''Peter Kleemann, Marianne Roetzel, Fritz Schwegler''. Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn, 1974.
*Helga Meister, "Fritz Schwegler", in ''Die Kunstszene Düsseldorf''. Recklinghausen, 1979, pp. 182–184.
*''Fritz Schwegler: Kunst der Erscheinung konnte so sein: Kleidungen zum Fünfzigsten''. Düsseldorf, 1992.
*Lothar Romain, ''Fritz Schwegler: Erscheinungsmaßnahmen und Abulvenz''. Hagen, 1983.
*''Fritz Schwegler: Kohle, Wasser, Benzin''. Strasbourg, 1996.
*Ferdinand Ullrich and Hans-Jürgen Schwalm, eds., ''Fritz Schwegler: die tägliche Jubelrolle; 365 Öffnungen; nach 25 Jahren und 29 von 1000 Notwandlungsstücken (hier zurückgemalt)''. Exhibition catalog. Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, 1999.
*Helga Meister, ''Und keiner hinkt. 22 Wege vom Schwegler wegzukommen''. Kleve and Düsseldorf, 2001.
*Ulrike Groos, ed., ''Das unbewegliche Theater des Fritz Schwegler von Breech''. Ostfildern:
Hatje Cantz
Hatje Cantz Verlag (English: Hatje Cantz Publishing) is a German book publisher specialising in photography, art, architecture and design. It was established in 1945 by Gerd HatjeArtFacts: Fritz Schwegler, 1935-2014, DE.