Stefan Szczesny

Infobox Artist
name = Stefan Szczesny
Born = Munich Germany


imagesize = 150px
caption = Stefan Szczesny 1962
birthname = Stefan Szczesny
birthdate = birth date|1951|04|09|mf=y
location = Munich, Germany
deathdate =
deathplace =
nationality = German
field = Painting, Drawing, Sculpture, Printmaking, Ceramics
training =
movement = Expressionism
works = "The Living Planet" (1907)
patrons =
awards =

Stefan Szczesny (April 09, 1951) is a German painter, draughtsman, and sculptor.He is best known for co-founding the Junge Wilde movement by, among other things, organizing the exhibition "Rundschau Deutschland" in 1981. Two of his most famous works in the present years are the Mainau Island (2007) and his The Living Planet for the Expo 2000.

Biography

*1951 Born in Munich
*1969-75 Studied at the Academy of Fine Art, Munich
*1975 Scholarship from the German Academic Exchange Service, Paris
*1979 Städtische Gallerie at the Lenbachhaus, Munich
*1980 Scholarship and period of time at the Villa Romana, Florence
*1981 Initiator and organizer of the exhibition "Rundschau Deutschland", Munich and Cologne
*1982/83 Villa Massimo scholarship and Rome Award
*1984 Metamorphoses, Glyptothek in Munich
*1985-88 Publisher of the magazine "Malerei:Painting:Peinture"
*1988 Rheinisches Landesmuseum, Bonn
*1990 Kunstverein Augsburg (Augsburg Society of Art)
*1990 Kunstverein Mannheim (Mannheim Society of Art)
*1991 Idols, Kunstverein Heidelberg (Heidelberg Society of Art)
*1992 Portraits, DuMont Kunsthalle, Cologne and Kunsthalle, Bremen
*1993 Caribbean Style, Neue Galerie, Linz
*1996 International Senelfeld Prize
*1997 Exhibition of works 1975-1996 at Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin
*1997 Vases and Ceramic Vessels, Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe
*1997 Sculptures and Ceramics, Gerhard-Marcks-Haus, Bremen
*1998 Pictures of the Côte d'Azur, Kunsthalle Emden, Emden
*1998 Museo del Grabado Español Contemporaneo, Marbella.
*1999 Pictures of the Côte d'Azur, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Passau.
*1999 Ceramics and Glass, Keramik Museum, Mettlach
*1999 Painting on Photography, Fondazione Levi, Venice
*2000 World Map of Life, 12 large-format ceramic murals, commissioned by WWF for the EXPO 2000 World Exhibition, Hanover
*2001 Painting Meets Photography, Städtische Galerie Villa Dessauer, Bamberg
*2001 Luxe, Calme et Volupté … ou la joie de vivre, La Malmaison Cannes Szczesny Artrium, Geneva
*2002 Una fiesta para los ojos, Casa de la Provincia, Seville
*2002 Premiere of “Szczesny - The Film”, Faudon Movies New York, at the 55th Cannes Film Festival
*2003 A Feast for the Eye, Gustav-Lübcke-Museum, Hamm
*2003 Méditerranée - L'Esthétique du Sud, Salle Jean Despace, Saint Tropez
*2004 Mediterráneo, Ses Voltes Centro Contemporaneo, Palma de Mallorca
*2005 Images érotiques, Kunsthalle Mannheim
*2006 Shadow Sculptures, Saint Tropez
*2007 Mainau Island Art project: Szczesny - A dream of an Earthly paradise Stefan Szczesny works in New York, Saint Tropez and Berlin.

The Living Planet

Following an invitation from the World Wildlife Fund and with support from Villeroy & Boch in Mettlach, Stefan Szczesny has used tiles to create twelve murals for Expo 2000 in Hannover. The technical leadership of the program was handled by ceramicist Peter Thumm. Using as a basis the current WWF program "Global 200" - which espouses the idea that intensive protection of 200 ecological core areas in the world would preserve 90% of its biological diversity - Stefan Szczesny has created his world map of life.

The twelve murals are grouped in pairs on the front and back of supporting panels. Arranged in an oval shape, they enclose the WWF information pavilion on the Expo grounds like a large, freestanding paravant. Tradition and modernity are intertwined. Inside the pavilion, in keeping with the theme of Expo 2000, the WWF utilizes state-of-the-art communications media to present its message the importance of protecting the environment and endangered species. The murals of Stefan Szczesny congenially link to the origins of our world of images, the hand-painted imagination of a subjective view of the world.

Living Planet Square is situated between Halls 14 to 17. The murals are larger than life. Each of the walls, which are composed of individual 5 x 5 cm tiles, measures 330 x 830 cm, creating a mural more than 350 square meters in size. 137.008 individual tiles are joined to create twelve pictures The image of the "network of life," as postutated by the WWF in its message at the Expo, is mirrored in the intermeshed joining of parts, each of which in its specific location contributes its individual image information to create the complete whole. In this way, before visitors even ponder the content pictured, the contribution of Stefan Szczesny is already a parable/metaphor exemplifying the event and the message.

The painting technique with burned-in colors on tile is uniquely suited for largescale images in an exterior setting. The painting is scuff-resistant, weather-resistant and immune to frost. Thus, Stefan Szczesny's work confronts viewers with a traditional technique that must seem an anachronism in the context of global devotion to new, electronically-based virtual media. Finally, however, it is an actively expressed belief in the origin of all of our image worlds, the expressive irnagination of each individual person. The picture imagined by the artist is a subjective view that can be communicated; an invitation to others to open their perception. The cross sum of Stefan Szczesnys murals at Expo 2000 is a kind of revolutionary poetry, in which opposites are unified without contradiction.

In its content and scenes, "The Living Planet Square" is a simultaneous networking of different image levels and storytelling structures. The basic pattern uniting all of the pictures is a world map. Divided into the five continents and - compiemented in the sixth pair of pictures by Antarctica - it serves as a framework in both form and content.

The composition of the picture segments on the outer ring provide an introductory view from afar. Figures placed across large areas, densely packed like pictograms, give viewers a clear introduction to the message of the mural. The numbers on the world map indicate the ecological regions designated by the WWF for its "Global 200" program.

Stefan Szczesny has layered a second image level over this didactic information. They are large, bright areas of empty space, white shadows as it were, that often require a second look before the viewer can realize their message. In addition to numerous animals belonging to each topography, one sees many figurines whose origin are often easily - but sometimes only with difficulty - reconstructed. What they all have in common is an origin in major works of western art. These are loose quotations which create not only a formal, compositional relationship with the animals' outlines. For the artist, art and nature are in harmony.

Underlying this view is a hoIistic conception of life, nature and the world, which cannot be explained in rational terms. The artist's perspective is shaped by his interaction with the world, and he draws strength from this sensual approach. The positive experience of the world becomes an esthetic, artistic experience which Stefan Szczesny desires to pass along to the viewer in his language of images.

The third level of painting is composed of graphical elements. Black sithouette drawings which, analogous to the image level of blank white areas, along with typical examples of our earth's flora and fauna, merge with biographically motivated images and quotations from prominent artworks. Contrasting references to the world of technology, to urban environments, and to exploitation of resources are suggested. The world as an endangered paradise ? Stefan Szczesny's world view is in no way closed to the threats to our environment arising out of technological progress. Along with the oil tanker, the windmill stands as a paradigmatic note that technological development must not necessarily have a negative impact on the environment.

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left|thumb|The_Living_Planet,_wallpainting_on_white_tiles,_830x330_cm,_2000in_Hanover]

The panels on the inside of the longish oval are composedof smaller compositions which are more oriented towards telling stories and closer viewing. As on the outside, a strong blue tone dominates the panels. The continents seem to float on the world's oceans. Animals typical of each region populate the landmasses and give viewers a sense of the world and its inhabitants across all languages and borders, beyond political events of the day. Here the idea of art as a nonverbal, global language once again comes to life. The humans on this world map of life are present in the image of their technical achievements or in the parable image of a paradise-like coexistence in harmony with nature. Here also are numerous quotations from the well of themes of our western art history. In their image, the artist creates a temporal link from antiquity to our most current present, thus referring to the continuity of all creative forces throughout history.

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Hanover]

Above all of this lies a series large portrait heads in a loose pattern, similar to an optical illusion. Here the artist has incorporated himself and his family into the picture. Thus the circle seems to close in the network of life, which should be conceived not in a nearsightedness stuck in each day, but across generations. Stefan Szczesny's contribution to Expo 2000 is somewhat of across sum of the body of his art to date, but not onty because of its formal size and the motives depicted.

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Hanover]

This work is also an homage to life, to nature's beauty and manyfigured and color-intensive proof of a positive approach to life "One cannot create art with politics, but politics with art." These words of Theodor Heuss come to mind when viewing these thematic panels by Stefan Szczesny, who without lifting the moralist's finger, manages with his contribution to point out that which matters to all of us. Respect for nature and life, perhaps less for us, but much more so for our children. His ceramic panels are also visible proof that art in our time need not be a phenomenon removed from society. Rather it is suited to awaken synergies, focus commitments, and proclaim common goals and messages to all people in a way both old and new.

Mainau Island

A Dream of Earthly Paradise

The yearning for Arcadia and the dream of an earthly paradisehave always fascinated people. So it’s no wonder that thisyearning has also been a favorite subject for painters and poets.Two great names in modern painting stand for this: PaulCézanne, with his bathers, and Henri Matisse, with his keywork “Luxe, Calme, et Volupté”.

Stefan Szczesny chose a whole island, Mainau, as the goal ofhis artistic longing, by stylizing and transforming it into hisvery personal, modern Arcadia. The island itself, embedded inone of Europe’s most beautiful cultural landscapes, with its lush vegetation and an evening mood in the pale light, radiatesa paradisiacal calm and primal vibrancy. In this primevalmood, Stefan Szczesny has placed his sculptures – silhouettesof people, black, dark, enigmatic, accentuating the transparenceof the light even further. This statuary of cut out steelis supplemented with hundreds of vases, on which nudesseem to float away in a downright weightless state. On themwe find the archetypal signs and stylistic elements that recallthe genesis of art in the cave drawings in Cuevas de Altamiraand Lascaux. Here Stefan Szczesny repeatedly attempts tocapture old myths and to bring out what is original and essentialin them. Let’s not forget the tremendous fascination of theMediterranean landscape where the artist lives and works, thedream of water, and the virility of fire in this landscape ofSouth France, which so strongly resembles that of Greece, andwhere he puts Arcadian scenes on his vases. Burned earth,purified by the consuming fire and the water-quenched embers,all this suggests an unfalsified, primeval mood. Szczesny’sart displays its allegiance to Primitivism, which generated thegreat artistic transformations of the 20th centuries in the workof Pablo Picasso. Szczesny’s inspiration thereby is morespontaneous, direct, and lighthearted. He does not re-inventPrimitivism, but gives it a modern meaning with his ciphers andabbreviations.The connecting element between the mainland and the island –the access to Arcadia, so to speak – is floatingly light andtransparent. The artist gave the 138-meter, glass-clad bridge afiligree design with floral elements, fruits, and nudes, so thatone can cast a mysterious gaze upon the water, as well as onthe island.

The very color symbolism of the iconography thatthe artist brought onto the glass in a prehistoric black, vegetativegreen, and aquatic blue recalls an ancient paradisiacalmood. Whoever sets a light foot on this bridge will find his wayto the sculptures, to flags waving in a suggested breeze, tothe iridescent light of the glass elements with their sharp, crystallinereliefs, and to the haptic vases.

Stefan Szczesny’s great merit is to have subjected Mainau Islandto an artistic metamorphosis. The trademark of his art willremain the ceramic vases, the sculptures, the ceramic wall, theglass reliefs, and the newly designed entrance bridge. UnderSzczesny’s sure hand, Mainau has become a Gesamtkunstwerkwhose dimensions, artistic pluralism, and diversity of techniquesseek their match. To a natural paradise he has added his own,humanly created one. Stefan Szczesny has invented MainauIsland anew, given it new radiance, and with his artistic elementsplaced ancient signs, traces of human creativity and design,traces of the greatest human mystery, that of inspiration and itsartistic expression.

Prof. Dr. Roland Doschka

References

* WWF und Expo 2000 (Hrsg.): "Szczesny, The Living Planet." Szczesny Factory, Köln 50670, ISBN 3-00-006163-0
* Stefan Szczesny: "Szczesny. AN EARTHLY PARADISE". Szczesny Factory, Saint Tropez 83990, ISBN 3-9808881-7-7
* Stefan Szczesny: "Szczesny. Insel Mainau. Ein Traum vom irdischen Paradies". Prestel Verlag, München 80539, ISBN 978-3-7913-3916-0
* Stefan Szczesny: "Luxe, calme et volputé... ou la joie de vivre ", La Malmaison - Cannes, 2001, Museumsausgabe, Catalogue
* Stefan Szczesny: "Szczesny. Ein Traum vom irdischen Paradies". Szczesny Factory Schweiz AG, Amriswil 8580, Catalogue

External links

* http://www.szczesny-online.com
* http://www.szczesnyfactory.com
* http://www.mainau.de/htdocs/en/start.htm
* http://www.expo2000.de/expo2000/index_e.htm

Persondata
NAME=Szczesny, Stefan
SHORT DESCRIPTION=German painter and sculptor
DATE OF BIRTH=April 09, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH=Munich, Germany DEFAULTSORT:Szczesny, Stefan