Born at Vienna in 1928 and became, to maturity, citizen of New Zealand, Friedensreich Hundertwasser (1928-2000) is one of the best-known artists of the end of the 20th century, but also one of the most controversial. Half-Jew (his mother was Jewish), he avoided persecution under the Nazi regime joining the Hitler Youth, and due to the experiences from that period he had always an strong anti-totalitarian position. Maybe that's why his works were remarked firstly by bright colours, organic forms, rejecting the straight lines, and a strong individualism.
Versatile and prolific, he designed coins, flags and stamps, but also expressed itself in pictorial art, environmentalism, philosophy and clothing. The most important of his works are however linked by architecture, his style rejecting the rationalism and functional architecture, they consider guilty of human misery. He called his theory of art "transautomatism", focusing on the experience of the viewer rather than the artist. He was buried in New Zealand after his death at sea on the RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 in 2000 at the age of 71.
His last project, started a year before his death, was Die Grüne Zitadelle von Magdeburg (The Green Citadel of Magdeburg), completed in 2005. This building, with trees growing from its facade and meadows sprouting on its rooftops, hosts offices, flats and shops, as well as a small hotel and a cafe. Everything in this complex proves originality and eccentricity: corrugated walls, rounded corners, uneven windows, a facade with crooked windows, highlighted in blue or purple. The multicolored columns resembles with large strung beads, and the towering golden spiers seem to be candles on a big candy pink cake balls.
List of Hundertwasser's works featured in this blog:
• Die Grüne Zitadelle von Magdeburg - Magdeburg (Germany)
• Hundertwasserhaus Waldspirale - Darmstadt (Germany)
• 542 Garten Im Regentropfen - Theater - Maul - Cappana 140 (watercolour)
About the stamp, illustrating St. Peter's Cathedral of Regensburg, I wrote here.
References
Friedensreich Hundertwasser - Wikipedia
Die Grüne Zitadelle von Magdeburg - Wikipedia
Sender: Kathleen Meseberg (direct swap)
Sent from Börde-Hakel (Saxony-Anhalt / Germany), on 19.12.2012
Photo: N. Krüger
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