{"id":171,"date":"2014-12-30T16:36:05","date_gmt":"2014-12-30T15:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.steffluethi.ch\/wp2\/nachrichten-2-2\/"},"modified":"2015-01-26T10:55:33","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T09:55:33","slug":"lebenslauf","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.steffluethi.ch\/en\/uber-steff\/lebenslauf\/","title":{"rendered":"Biography"},"content":{"rendered":"
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1955<\/div>\n
Born on 21 January in eastern Switzerland; lives and works in Ticino (CH) and Tuscany (I)<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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1976-78<\/div>\n
Accademia delle Belle Arti, Brera, Milan, Italy \u2013 Sculpture<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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1978-82<\/div>\n
University Polytechnic Kassel (D), Fine Art \u2013 Sculpture<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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1982<\/div>\n
Diploma work \u00abNature \u2013 Technology \u2013 Aesthetics\u00bb<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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1985-92<\/div>\n
Pietrasanta, Italy \u2013 Sculpture in bronze<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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1993<\/div>\n
Associate of VISARTE Ticino<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Between chaos and order<\/em><\/p>\n

Steff L\u00fcthi is an artist who is difficult to pigeon-hole and who prefers to swim against the tide.<\/em><\/p>\n

Space concept<\/em><\/p>\n

Even in his youth, he was fascinated by space and by the problem of how to animate space. This is reflected by his first artistic works: hollowed-out wooden objects. Steff L\u00fcthi identifies with Joseph Beuys\u2019 thematisation of opposites and translates them into his own work: warmth and cold, evolution and rigor mortis, creativity and rationalisation, his search for the \u201cwhole\u201d person and in the movement of 1968. He exposes his sculptures \u2013 and also himself \u2013 to the elements, thereby demonstrating the fragility of his own psyche and that of the nakedness of his body against the force of society and nature. \u201cI don\u2019t give a damn for aesthetics and just walk on\u201d is his credo.<\/em><\/p>\n

His quest for space extends to the landscape, he makes pencil drawings which he turns into drypoint and intaglio etchings. \u201cIf you can\u2019t fly you\u2019re not out of the woods\u201d is the title of one of his works. To escape the confines of rigid structures, whether his own or those imposed by society and his home country, is the tenor of this \u201cstorm and stress\u201d period. Steff L\u00fcthi expresses this with a bird trapped in the cross of the Swiss flag.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yes, no wonder he so often finds the small country of Switzerland too restrictive. He escapes to the United States, visits Haiti and finds this is a journey of extreme experiences. The coexistence of rich and poor next door to one another is something he cannot forget.<\/em><\/p>\n

Testing the elements<\/em><\/p>\n

The elements inspire Steff L\u00fcthi to engage in complex and complicated projects. He knows how to spark enthusiasm in experts in his field whom he employs to realize these ideas. He is by now living in Ticino and in the ravine of Ponte Brolla he tries out fire-throwing gloves, with which he seems to threaten to fly off like a dragon. The opposites of fire and ice inspire the artist to start a project which he conceives as an \u201cintercultural act for the improvement of reciprocal cultural understanding\u201d and as a plea for the implementation of solar energy, a project that he intends to take through the whole of Europe and as far as the African equator. The solar-powered machine freezes water-drops together. Icicles form and melt again: \u201cThe fire of the sun turns water to ice. From chaos comes order, from order chaos…\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

During this period he starts a family. But then he is again drawn to travel, this time to Italy, and there follow seven years of nomadic existence between his studio in Pietrasanta and his home in Ticino. He is again preoccupied with inner and outward space: he produces delicate sculptures made of segments of plants, branches, grasses and flower-stems which he casts in bronze.<\/em><\/p>\n

The death of a friend leads him to reflect on the transience of human life. These thoughts culminate in the figure of Icarus. This is his first human figure, a theme that from this point will not let him go, even though his preoccupation with renewable energy and the elements remains important and finds new form in the \u201cSolar Ark\u201d and in the \u201cFlying Egg\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Umans and cosmos<\/em><\/p>\n

The Gulf War impacts on the artist\u2019s work like a bomb. The cruelty that human beings can implement against one another shocks him to the roots. Where now the hope of evolution, where has technological development \u2013 from Icarus via the wheel to our present advanced technology \u2013 taken us? \u201cWe are strange animals\u201d is the title of his first installation using the tiny figures. He is driven by the quest for meaning, by questions of human transience and cosmic eternity: where do we come from, who are we, were are we going? He places his figures at the edge of bowls (brass or bronze) whose inner is reminiscent of cosmic vortices. Steff L\u00fcthi calls them spheres or galaxies. The small creatures, among them Beuys himself, express by their poses their approach to these questions (where am I situated at the moment?). We find winged figures among them. Are they angels who have already discovered the answers to these questions and are now forming a connection between the finite and the infinite? Perhaps they are forerunners of those who will venture into the water of the spheres \u2013 girded with flippers and snorkel. The artist has already produced a piece on this theme, a work commissioned for the \u201cGarden of the Arts \u2013 Piccolo Venezia\u201d in Ticino. The \u201cFontana Galaxis\u201d is situated in front of the art patron\u2019s villa in a large square and entrances us with its almost hovering concept. Other pieces are reminiscent of the Tower of Babel. Perched on the edge of huge iron towers the tiny people sit looking lost above the abyss. On the saddle of the Grimsel Pass, L\u00fcthi places a small figure in the position of the Thinker on a rock and leaves him there for a good while. A (nearly invisible) monument? A reminder to reflect?<\/em><\/p>\n

Steff L\u00fcthi seems to me to have developed from a provocateur into a visionary. His early works were provocative: in them he obstructed, broke out, crossed borders, fought with the elements and socity and repeatedly appeared himself as a performer. With the appearance of the human figure in his works, he seems to me to place a finger in the wounds of our society, to throw an uncomfortable light on the way we live today. The bronze figures \u2013 each of them an alter ego \u2013 call us to pause and think on.
Is it not one of the tasks of every artist to build bridges into the future, to offer visions?<\/em><\/p>\n

Minusio, Summer 05
Tina Stolz<\/em><\/p>\n

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