Hans Jorg Glattfelder Biography
Hans Jörg Glattfelder (Zurich, 1939) In Zurich he began studying law, then art history and archaeology, which he abandoned in 1961 to work alongside Danilo Dolci in the 'Centre for Full Employment' in Partinico in Sicily. He then briefly attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and settled in Florence in 1963. At the beginning, Glattfelder's painting was influenced by the rigorous geometrism of the "Zurich concreteists", of which, however, in the light of the Florentine Renaissance, by a completely personal interpretation. In 1966 he had his first solo exhibition in the 'numero' gallery in Fiamma Vigo in Milan. In 1970 he moved his domicile to Milan where he maintained friendly ties with Mario Ballocco, Antonio Calderara, Gianni Colombo, Mario Nigro and Luigi Veronesi. He deepens his interests in the history of representations of space and geometry. He follows the teachings of Ludovico Geymonat and Silvio Ceccato. Thus began the series of "non-Euclidean metaphors" in 1977. In 1977 the painter RP Lohse introduced it to the philosopher Hans Heinz Holz who for many years had been particularly interested in the social implications of constructive art. A dialogue was born that continued over the following decades. HH Holz dedicated a series of in-depth studies to Glattfelder's work. Glattfelder begins to write essays on the relationship between plastic arts and sciences. In 1982 he published a manifesto against the rampant cult of irrationalism in art and contrasted it with his own position of 'meta-rationalism'. With this term he means a plastic language that thematizes and at the same time calls into question rationality: a discourse that is not only rational, but also about rationality. In a mutual clarification of methods he sees a necessary premise for the dialogue between scientific culture and plastic arts. In 1990 he spent a sabbatical year in New York thanks to a scholarship from the city of Zurich. The most vivid memory of this stay remains the frequent visits to Leon Polk Smith's studio. In 1992 a large retrospective exhibition was organized by the Albers Museum in Bottrop, in 1997 at the Saner Foundation in Switzerland and in 1999 in the Museum for Concrete Art in Ingolstadt in Germany. In 1998 he moved to Paris where he currently lives and works.
