During an interview-interview in 1989 I interrupted Harald Szeemann asking him the reason for choosing to live in Ticino. "For love," was the lightning-fast, unmistakable reply. Exactly 33 years later I ask the same question again to Ingeborg Lüscher, the person, the artist for whom the brilliant creator of exhibitions, of the Museum of obsessions, had landed in Ticino. "To live alone, to start over with my life." It was 1967. Harald and Ingeborg would meet five years later for the Documenta in Kassel. Love at first sight, they begin to live together with her in Tegna. "With Harald the time of solitude was over." In 1975 their daughter Una was born.
It all started like this, by any chance?
"In truth Harald knew and was intrigued by the work I was doing on Armand Schulthess (Neuchâtel 1901-Auressio 1972) who at the age of 50 left his job as a federal official in Bern and chose a place of geographical and mental exile country house in Auressio in Val Onsernone. He abandons a normal life to follow a vision, a dream. Szeemann was interested in my research-testimony, which will later flow into a book and various exhibitions ».
What was she fascinated by in Schulthess's work?
«From the possibility of revealing the path of a mysterious person who was hiding. He wanted to find the raw material, the one that makes the world work, without turning to God but seeking his way in science. He was hiding, it took me a year to talk to him. He had hung up a sign with the phone number, but that number did not exist ... Under the doorbell he had written “Out of service. Break". In perfect solitude he devoted himself to the assembly of information. He wrote them on plates of various materials that he hung from the trees of his forest, arranged in an encyclopedic order along sections with texts on physics, literature, medicine, astrology, cinema and theater, chemistry, cooking and architecture ... I photographed them and was publishing a book. She attracted Szeemann's interest and that became the real Documenta '72 book. Great exhibition, great success ».
Schulthess's work, vision, utopia continue even now ...
«In the meantime, I remember Max Frisch's interest when in '71 I went to show him the unprinted book at Berzona. Seeing that material he started writing "Man in the Holocene" again where the central character is Geiser and he, Schulthess, becomes Urgeiser, before Geiser ... Then I just made a new book on Auressio's hermit in which I compare the original situation of his work, with him in life, to the current one, alongside photographs from then and now. Schulthess became famous after his death, an enormous interest in his work grew, 35 exhibitions were dedicated to him and the investigation continues also because we have found new material, for example on things thrown away by the heirs to renovate the house. It is a story of accumulation and dispersion. His work continues to live through my photographs, which are also evidence of the passage of time and the action of man ».
This story is intertwined with the relationship with Harald Szeemann, which lasted until his death in 2005. What struck you about him?
"The sensibility. She was a sensitive, empathetic, intelligent, determined person. A genius. When we met it came from the controversy of “When Attitudes Become Form”, the historic exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Bern. A scandal for many people also in the art world, for him the proof that this was the right path where he could conquer his freedom between exhibitions and artists. Also in Bern he wanted to propose an exhibition on Joseph Beuys, the Board of Trustees objected and he left. He already had an aura that art circles listened to him with admiring interest and it would not have been difficult for him to find museums for his exhibitions. He had an unimaginable energy of work: sometimes he slept in museums so as not to waste time going to the hotel… ».
How did living with Harald Szeemann change your artistic activity?
«The approach of my research changed with the publication of the book on Schulthess. Before I was an unknown young artist, after that the interest in my work started. Gradually I entered a field where I realized I existed as an artist. From Locarno Rinaldo Bianda, who had seen my works on display at the Kümmel Gallery in Cologne, helped me in making contacts for other exhibitions. With Harald we have always done things together, so I thought it was wonderful to have someone with whom to discuss my works. He told me no, I don't want to see your work until it's done. After the initial bewilderment I realized that that idea allowed me to work without positive or negative opinions, and therefore I could be totally myself. When I finally showed him my works I was lucky enough to talk about it with someone who could fully understand my work ».
You both had an international business, yet you remained in Tegna ...
«Ticino was my refuge. When I decided to live alone, I asked friends about Ticino. They pointed me to a photographer in Tegna, he showed me the apartment, I liked it right away. I lived for twenty years, first alone and then with Harald in that magnificent 300-year-old house, owned by a wise, sensitive and sweet person. The perfect situation. With Harald in 88 we built our house on a project by the architect. Christof Zürcher, also in Tegna, at the edge of the forest towards the river. This place has always been very important to us. We wanted to stay here, not in Paris, London or New York, no matter how beautiful, interesting cities but we lived well here. After the flood of '78, the young people went to clean up the river and Harald with them. Helping was typical of him, his generosity distinguished him. Thus the people of Tegna began to love him, to feel that he was one of them ».
How was the transition to art born?
“While I was shooting a film in Prague in '67 I met people, especially young people who were preparing the revolution. They risked their lives for a higher ideal and I wondered about my work as an actress. I obey the director, I always do what is written, what the director tells me ... I understood that I had to take responsibility for my life, I decided to change my profession, to start as an artist. The arrival in Ticino coincides with this radical change. I rent the former studio of Hans Arp in Remo Rossi's Ateliers in via Nessi in Locarno, working and reading (many readings, from Joyce to Habermas), I reflect on the work of Joseph Beuys in the perspective of my new situation, I deepen the problems of art, relationships with life, communication. I start experimenting with various expressive techniques, letting myself be inspired by encounters with people, objects, materials, always with the aim of letting the invisible shine through behind the visible, making the hidden forces of nature flow into my works ».
Even the game, the playful aspect belongs to his way of expressing himself. I remember his mysterious participation in the Venice Biennale in '99 ...
“Yes, it was fun. I didn't want to look like Szeemann's wife, who edited that edition, so I invented a new identity… Chinese. Starting with the pseudonym Ying Bo and the title of the video “Fei-Ya! Fei-Ya! y, y (Our Chinese Friends) ". The critics said: you have to see the Chinese film, without knowing it was mine. Then in the end here's the surprise. Fun. As well as two years later, again in Venice, the video “Fusion”, in which two well-known Swiss football teams, Grasshoppers and San Gallo, compete on the pitch not in shorts but wearing tailor-made Italian haute couture suits. I run along the edges of the soccer field, clearly visible on the gray day with boots and red hair. In both cases I develop a psychological investigation into the encounter, precisely the fusion, between different, apparently irreconcilable realities, which, by merging, give life to situations suspended between reality and imagination ».
The materials are also striking in his works. I mention two: cigarette butts and sulfur ...
«In the first period of Tegna I started working with cigarette butts. The cigarette is sucked in, the butt remains that represents a segment of lived life, something that has become part of a person, in the meantime internalized or expelled. So I applied the butts to everyday objects, such as the bicycle or boots. Since 1984 yellow and black are the dominant colors, I apply pure sulfur and ash on paintings, sculptures, photographs, objects. I have always been interested in the theme of fire, told through its principle, sulfur, and its end, ash. And since the sulfur surface illuminates the works, I'm interested in investigating what's behind the light. I went to see the sulfur mines, I study the symbolic meaning and continue to work with this beautiful material; at times it constitutes the surface pigment of vast dimensions, at other times the matter of mysterious three-dimensional objects, which take on their own light ».
And his "magical" photos?
«It is a project that has been going on for over forty years and that in reality will never end, always surprising for me too. It has already flowed into a book and a series of exhibitions, one even now in Antwerp. To people - friends, neighbors, guests, artists, etc. - I propose the “magician's game” inviting them to do the magic that comes to them at that moment. They decide the place, the scene and of course the action, meanwhile I photograph them, 18 photos of which I select 9 by arranging them in a fixed order. Thus was born a gallery of men and women, of "portraits" who interpret themselves in a way that we can say playful and at the same time revealing. There are now more than 500, with characters from Andy Warhol to Lawrence Weiner, from Jean-Christophe Ammann to James Lee Byars, Maurizio Cattelan, Christo, Tony Cragg, Wim Delvoye, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Jonathan Meese, Otto Muehl, Shirin Neshat, Ernesto Neto, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Arnulf Rainer, Richard Serra, Daniel Spoerri, Chen Zhen and many, many others ».
Last question, why are you staying in Tegna?
«For the beauty and because the heart has made its roots».
A life at the rhythm of art
Ingeborg Löffler, this is her birth name, after high school she studied acting in Berlin and then worked as an actress in theater, television and cinema. She plays film roles including the main female part of Madelon in Hoffmann's "Cadillac", leading female figures in television films, including "Jennifer" in 1965, Alwine von Valencay in the television comedy "Leben wie die Fürsten" Jean Anouilh, Laura in the television comedy “Ein Phönix zuviel” and Laura Manulescu in “Des Rätsels Lösung” 1966 (partner Ivan Desny) as well as theater tours also in Switzerland. In 1959 she married Marc Lüscher (Basel 1923-Lucerne 2017), psychotherapist, sociologist and philosopher, inventor of the famous Test Lüscher, who analyzes the mood of a subject based on his color preference. In 1965-66 she studied psychology at the Freie Universität in Berlin. Also on the basis of the political upheavals in Paris, Berlin and Prague, where she meets the dissidents of the "Spring", she decides to start over.
In 1967 he moved to Tegna and began with the visual arts. From '68 he made the first “Stub paintings”, objects covered with cigarette butts. At the same time he began to document the work of Armand Schulthess in the woods of Onsernone with photographs and texts, publishing “Dokumentation über AS”. For about ten years he devoted himself to conceptual works (photography, text, painting and found objects) on a plurality of themes: chance, eros, love, childhood, dreams, divination and death ... In 1984 he began to use sulfur as a material of art, and yellow becomes the key color in his works. She is a sculptor, painter, photographer, author of books, videos and installations, since 1968 she has held dozens and dozens of exhibitions in galleries, museums and cultural institutions in Europe and the States. In 2018-19 she curated Schulthess's installations in the exhibition “Harald Szeemann. Museum of Obsessions ”at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles, at the Kunstmuseum in Bern, at the Kunsthalle in Düsseldorf and at the Castello di Rivoli in Turin. You have taught in various academies, including the Sommerakademie Berlin, the Schule für Gestaltung Luzern, the F + F Kunstschule Zürich, the Ecole Supérieure de l'Art Visuelle Genève and the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts Salzburg. She is considered one of the most important figures on the contemporary art scene.
