Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

ART

How Zurich finally made peace with its very own Banksy

In the late 1970s mysterious paintings started appearing on walls around Zurich: created under the cover of darkness they were the work of an anonymous artist who would become known internationally as the "sprayer of Zurich".

Published: 30 May 2018 16:47 CEST
How Zurich finally made peace with its very own Banksy
Naegeli's 1978 artwork Udine was restored in 2005.

The distinctive stick figures were a form of protest against a dull, conservative banking hub – a city very different from the lively Zurich of today.

The graffiti divided the public, with people split over whether it constituted art or vandalism. Meanwhile, city authorities were distinctly unimpressed, offering a 3,000-franc reward for anyone offering information about the artist’s identity.

In 1979, the culprit was finally arrested after he returned to the scene of one of his paintings when he realised he had left his glasses behind. He was unveiled as Harald Naegeli, a Swiss artist who had trained in both Paris and Zurich.

During the subsequent trial, Naegeli fled to Germany, the opening gambit in a legal drama that lasted nearly 40 years and involved everything from an international arrest warrant to public petitions by artists and intellectuals and even an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights.

Read also: Cleaners accidentally throw away Swiss artist's 'Unhappy Meal' sculpture

But the long-running dispute finally ended on Tuesday in highly unusual circumstances when Zurich councillor Filippo Leutenegger and Naegeli appeared together before the media and announced they had found a way to bury the judicial axe.

Under the deal, Naegeli – now an internationally recognised pioneer of street art – has presented Zurich with a painting. In exchange, the city has dropped claims for damages of 9,000 francs related to cleaning costs for the removal of 25 artworks painted by the artist on the city’s walls from 2012 to 2013.

“We have found a non-bureaucratic solution with him and now we can draw a line under the whole affair,” Leutenegger told journalists.

Naegeli, for his part, spoke about the painting ‘Utopie-Auge’ (literally ‘Utopia Eye’), describing himself as a dedicated Utopian.

The deal announced on Tuesday comes after the Zurich district court judge overseeing the case called on the two parties to look beyond the courtroom for an answer.

As Swiss daily Tages Anzeiger pointed out, things have come a long way in Zurich since the 1970s.

Life on the run

After fleeing during his 1979 trial, Naegeli built his artistic reputation in Germany receiving commissions from the Social Democratic Party and the University of Tübingen among others.

In 1981, he was sentenced in absentia to nine months in prison and in 1984 he was deported from Germany to Switzerland where he served out the prison term.

He then returned to Germany only to start spray painting again in Zurich in 2012.

In 2005, his 1978 Zurich painting ‘Udine’ was restored.

ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

Published: 8 July 2023 10:13 CEST
African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

SHOW COMMENTS