Francesco de Bartolomeis States of being: ideas, emotions, nature
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Francesco de Bartolomeis
States of being: ideas, emotions, nature
To orient oneself in the recent production (2001-03) of Hannes Hofstetter, one has to go back at least until 1988. We encounter works with a stylistic identity that has had surprising developments in the following years. Isolated works and cycles of works in which ideas, positions, values never become burdened in content but participate in the magic, the surprise, the mystery that can never be lacking in art. The strong roots of his research in ideas and events necessarily lead Hannes to proceed in cycles. The cycles allow explorations, insights, variations that produce more or less extensive types. The cycles of the last fifteen years or so are many. Elements 1988 (Elemente), Filing cabinets 1989 (Akten), Constellations 1991 (Sternzeichen), Scriptures 1992 (Schriften), Beautiful new world 1993 (Schöne neue Welt), Tumuli 1994 (Tumulus), Metalli 1997 (Metalle), Pietre 1997 (Steine ). The cycles detach, but not entirely, works of particular interest because they have the value of synthesis of elements found in other works. For example, Deposito 1989 (Steichen), Aldiqua aldilà 1991 (Diesseits jenseits) and the recent North-South 2001. In his works alchemical signs coexist with mathematical formulas, letters and writings of various languages with circles, ellipses, orbits as elements of the past and present, of nature and technology, of everyday life and of the mind merge or compare. The myth penetrates the events and transforms them. As for Mark Rothko, for example, the myth opens up to the events of today. The 25 works that make up the great installation The Last Judgment (1995-99) by Antony Caro also arise from a painful sensitivity for the present, drawing on a past in which symbols of universal value and therefore perennial are condensed. the many. What and how many materials and processes does Hofstetter use? Their identification is not easy and it takes a long time to talk about them. Surely the mixed technique is dominant as a rigorous stylistic choice even for the most recent works (2001-03), among other things, the two cycles (Crosses and Signs) and the large triptych (North-South) which, like an installation, it has the strength to modify the environment while respecting its characteristics. Croci 2001 (Kreuzen). The cross goes beyond a particular religion and imposes itself as the third of the four fundamental symbols (the other three: center, circle, square) also for the relationship it has with them. Relations with the center (due to the intersection of the two lines), with the circle in which the cross can be inscribed, with the square that is generated, so to speak, by disassembling the cross and moving the horizontal line up and down and to the left and right the vertical line. The cross is the most universal symbol: it has great power of synthesis. it connects heaven and earth, makes elevation and grounding coexist. it is measure and order. In Hannes' interpretation, the Crosses combine sacral value and a dynamic, lively organization. In a wide range of variations, the artist maneuvers structures, coordinate systems. And they are symbol-forms in the space-cosmos. Organization but not regularity. Sometimes the elements of the cross shatter and move away or become signs that form intricacies, labyrinths or are tangles of thorns or geometric constructions that mix symmetries and asymmetries, chromatic contrasts and tonal passages. The material: among other things, pigments, gold, silver, sand, sawdust, salt.
Signs 2002. The works of this cycle are not a simple revival of Schriften from 1992. In the cycle of Signs, the poetry that arises from contradictions has new developments. The forms are constructed in the dominance of writings in German (Sein = To be; Suche = Research; Trans = Transformation; Ewig = Eternal): they occupy almost the entire space of the painting and welcome other languages in much smaller characters: ancient Greek, sanctioned , Indian, Korean, Chinese… Symbols of ways of life (being, searching, changing) humbly confront the unfathomable mystery of eternity. The restlessness of ideas and a combination of vigor and disorientation in the face of insurmountable limits go hand in hand with the stylistic quality that emerges from the way of building structures with large and small writings and the accentuation of colors and materials. Words are images that are valid at the same time as interpretations, behaviors, relationships. Mystery of language, of communicating, of penetrating meanings.
What is hinted at and almost hidden in Croci e Segni converges, becoming more complicated, in the great North-South 2001 triptych (230x495 cm) which is a metaphor for life. The rare ability to combine strength and lightness, to bring the variety of materials back to expressive refinement, characteristics that mark Hannes' work from the beginning, finds a new realization in the triptych: it is a vital representation that demands silence, enters your mind , excites you. A capture without violence. Space (large, small, internal, external) and time (the present is charged with the past and projected into the future) have a widespread vitality that opens up many avenues of experience. The obstinacy of knowing and deepening, of seeking orientations of values does not prevail over what is impossible to explain. Precisely because of what happens in space time, the three compartments do not have a linear succession and do not limit certain physical places. Circularity, passage from inside to outside and vice versa, transformation, elevation but also rooting in the successive layers of the earth: these are the events in the triptych. In the partitions horizontal and vertical rhythms; splendor of gold; depth of blues and blacks that flank light areas with rare appearances of reds. The right (North) compartment has an extraordinary versatility: it suggests the internal structure of a Gothic cathedral but also sacred woods of Germanic mythology and is also a place of the mind. How not to remember Deployments on the verticals. 1913 Frantisek Kupka Cathedral? No filiation from Kupka of the third section of the triptych, however it is useful to compare two very personal ways of rendering not the architectural morphology of a place but the experience of recollection and revelation between forms that rise in the light. Figuration? Abstraction? It is a meaningless distinction. While the lower part of the triptych has homogeneity as a ground-rooting, the other two compartments are a necessary counterpoint with their diversity. It is dominated by the sunshine and the diffused, warm light that are openings towards the Mediterranean (South): seas, expanses of fields, profiles of mountains. Also in this case nature transforms itself into geometries of the mind without losing anything of its vitality. Complications, coexistences of opposites, passages from elevation to the search for rootedness (and these are the same coordinates as the Crosses) give the triptych a modulation, a poetic pervadence that does not die out. Nord-Sud is a work of high quality for the way in which ideas become art. Due to its complexity, it is the synthesis of an autobiography which, beyond choices and private events, explores some general situations of existence.
The synthesis, the exploration, the bringing inside ideas of great weight is a common feature of all the works of Hannes, even those that have a very simple structure, reduced to a uniform background that seems barely touched by backgrounds or elements of gold. or silver or by sign. Whether simple or complex, the compositions always welcome different states of existence (recollection and expansion, contemplation and sensoriality) but all equally essential, such as Hannes' periodic returns to Germany, life with Paola in the hills of Saluzzo and frequent travels. If we manage to stay together with the works of Hannes, to dwell on the details and broaden our gaze to the whole, we feel an unexpected change in us (but this is what always happens in relations with art). Because they are works that make us reflect and bring fantasies, emotions, sensations to the heart. They stimulate concentration but also to enjoy unlimited openings of spaces, as well as physical contacts with the earth, scents, shapes, colors of nature. Hannes's is a cultural quest to get to know himself, others, the world. Not just as an artist.
Francesco De Bartolomeis