Thomas Baldischwyler
Thomas Baldischwyler (D, 1974, lives and works in Hamburg) works as an artist, DJ, musician, and author. He can be positioned in these areas in thematic terms as well, since at least in his own practice they are complexly interwoven. It depends on the specific theme or context whether he produces musical projects, collages, films, sculptures, installations, or accompanying texts. He also uses obscure, anachronistic mediums such as the verre églomisé technique.
This technique reveals a further dimension of Baldischwyler's work: Based on historical points of reference, e.g. the verre églomisé technique as a 17th-century folk art, he develops his own aesthetic and lends this historical, autodidactic art a new context by linking the content-related level with the material one and transferring both to contemporary art ("Hinterglasmalerei als bäuerlicher Nebenerwerb (Verre Églomisé as a Farmer's Second Occupation)", 2006). Semi-scientific texts, which accompany the exhibitions and to which pictures and historical references are occasionally added in an art-historical manner, create a link between the elements of his shows that remains unclear yet indisputable.
This distortion of traditional elements of artistic or cultural production can also be found in exhibitions such as "Draw Like A Chimpanzee: Diorama of an art which would be possible if Hermann S. Reimarus had won vs René Descartes" in the Aktualisierungsraum in Hamburg (2007), in which early experiments on the behaviour of animals were updated in an experiment on himself and processes of civilizing culture and nature, as well as their effects and traces in cultural artefacts, were compared with each other. A recurring element is Expressionism in its ambivalent position between artistic shaping and archaic-animalistic expression.
For the series "Mode, Bücher und Musik (Fashion, Books and Music)", which was on view at the Kunstverein Hamburg in 2006, Baldischwyler developed the third part of the show, "Teil 3: Musik (Part 3: Music)", in which the Kunstverein was turned into a staged, yet fully functional record store. Baldischwyler invited various national and international labels and distributors to participate in the show and conducted interviews beforehand that were shown on monitors. Lectures and performances were organised and the content-related frame was supplemented by stories and instruments of musicians, who were selected with a main focus on their alternative distribution strategies. For example, a cutting machine was set up behind the record store with which dubplates, i.e. unique records, could be produced.
Thomas Baldischwyler, "o. T. (Rot)", 2006, Verre Églomisé, installation view "Hinterglasmalerei als bäuerlicher Nebenerwerb", Hochschule für bildende Künste, Hamburg
Curriculum vitae
Thomas Baldischwyler, "o. T. (Schwarz / Sterne)", 2007, Verre Églomisé
Thomas Baldischwyler, "Pilz", 2007, Collage, copy on photographic paper
Thomas Baldischwyler, "Draw Like A Chimpanzee: Diorama of an art which would be possible if Hermann S. Reimarus had won vs René Descartes", 2007, mold of the Reimarus badge, Lessing Memorial, Gänsemarkt Hamburg, curtain, wooden pearls and hemp band, installation detail Aktualisierungsraum, Hamburg
Thomas Baldischwyler, "Jupiter and Saturn have not yet cooled off", 2007, installation view, Galerie für Landschaftskunst, Hamburg
Solo Exhibitions (Selection)
Group Exhibitions (Selection)
Publications
Awards and Scholarships