他是高超的图形和艺术玻璃设计者和工匠、画家和艺术家。在第一眼看到极端敏感的绘画作品时就赞同了他的艺术天分。他的画显示了存在于孤独中的人性和他的“人性状态”,身于独处和拥挤不堪中的空虚。来自内心骚动的完整表现,像一位饮酒的女子喝下了一杯痛苦,或者是她无法承受下去。高个子的母亲,头发连着太阳和能量神秘之源,还有她们大大的步子、呼吸和行动。伯尔尼的艺术学校,曾生活在瓦尔多的精神疗养院,后来居住的、充塞着作品的公寓,这些是萨科瑟先生的重要生命过程。
Philippe Saxer – illustrator, painter, skilled artistic glass maker – artist. This is clear from the very first view of his extraordinarily sensitive drawings. Philippe Saxer's paintings show the human in the seclusion of his existence, his "condition humaine", pictures of the loneliness of too crowded emptiness. Pictures of an entireness gnashing from inner turmoil. The female drinker drains the cup of sorrow, or she is not able to hold it anymore. Mothers are tall with their hair connecting them with the sun and with secret sources of energy. Big are their steps, their breath, their action. School for arts and crafts in Berne, partly psychiatric hospital Waldau, his own appartment .. these are some important points of Saxer's biography.
我们曾经一遍又一遍地问着,精神意识的疾病是帮助还是妨碍了艺术的表现?我认为都不是。真正的艺术天才,如同精神疾病者一样稀少,也如同精神健康者同样稀少。没有人仅仅因为精神问题而变成了艺术家。尽管一种疾病有可能把某种东西移植到人类的内心,使得多年被埋没的东西瞬间地、毫无准备地喷涌而出,但是,艺术的创造只有具备了创造性的潜能才可能像火山一样喷发出来。生命有着痛苦,生命意味着背着十字架而前行。萨科瑟先生在画里的十字架,尽管如同坚硬的斧子,但仍充满了活力。
Again and again the question is raised whether or not a mental disease supports or impedes artistic expression. I think: neither/nor. True artistic talent is as rare with mentally ill people as with healthy ones. Nobody becomes an artist just because he or she is mentally ill. Although it is possible that an illness shifts something in the inside of a human being and something buried for years or even decades breaks out totally unexpected. However, the artistic creation can only come into flow or even erupt like a volcano provided the creative potential exists at all.
Life hurts. Life means bearing the cross. However the cross of Saxer in his drawings - even with its rigid axes - is in itself full of dynamic.
萨科瑟先生的画大多数是黑白作品,有一种羞怯和一种专注。有时候也加上红色,据说红色代表了爱,但杂乱的红色则意味着死亡。在他的作品里,死亡是一位常客;画里的线条如此抓人,常常越过了画纸的边界,走向一个无知无界的自由空间,却没有离开我们,迫使我们思考和决定我们将走向何处,跟随着走向无法通过、充满了越来越多死结的巨网,无穷无尽,也许会出现一个梦中的出口,或者回到我们自己的心灵。每次欣赏我们都会发现新的视觉感受。
Saxer's drawings are mostly in black and white. A form of modesty and concentration. Sometimes red is added. Red is love it is said and red rhymes with dead. Dead is a frequent visitor in Saxer's work. The lines of his drawings are captivating, often go beyond the page margin, beyond the limitation out into the unknown or possibly into total freedom. However, they do not leave us, but they force us to make our own decision if we want to entrust ourselves to them, to follow them into the impassable, into a net of increasingly more knots, into a boundlessness, maybe the emerging of undreamt possibilities, or if we want to return to ourselves. Every time enriched by a new visual experience.
萨科瑟的画还能打动我的是画中多重的含混不清。我记得几年前他给我看了一个玻璃窗的设计,玻璃有色的部分装饰了线条,我惊奇地想知道,他如何把相对的部分不仅中和起来,而且表达出了同等关系的某种对话,还重点强调了不同的材质、技巧、形状、色块以及线条构图。
What strikes me again and again about Saxer's paintings is their multiple ambiguity. I remember that some years ago he showed me designs for glass windows in which coloured glass parts were combined with linear drawing. I was impressed how he succeeded not to neutralise opposing parts, but to initiate a dialogue of equal partnership, emphasizing the features of the different materials, techniques, forms, the colour surface as well as the line.
玻璃绘画里多重层次变得伸手可及。萨科瑟的画经常在躁动的色块里出现毛笔的线条,土褐色、灰色、棕色及黑白色充斥其间。但是,他却用较少的绘画空间,更多表现了不同比例和观念的冲突。当发散的人物逐渐消失而不能触及和构想,我们就不能再打搅里面的隐秘。
In glass painting these multiple layers become tangible. Saxer's paintings often show brushstroke drawings in a turbulent coloured area, whereas earth tones, grey, brown, black and white often prevail. Thus, the excellent draftsman succeeds in expressing himself ambiguously also in painting. However, this is done less by using pictorial space, than by confronting various views and proportions. In the colour resolution, when figures in diffuse paint mist look inapproachable and unconceivable, it is no longer for us to infringe such privacy.
他像大师一样把内容、形式、无序和隐秘等在一个画面中冲撞和对话,我是通过一位偶遇他的人才了解到这位艺术家和他的艺术作品。当然,他生活的不同层次我也无法熟知,但我认识他并且理解他的作品。我简单地感觉到,他这些含混式的作品,来自他多层多面的人格,同环境和社会冲撞和燃烧。作为当代艺术家,要用任何方式表现真实的绘画变得无比艰难,而萨科瑟的画却创造了自己的真实和诚实。这是一种深层存在的艺术,表现着生活的痛苦和临近的断裂。
The artist masterfully succeeds in letting content and form, archaic as well as private aspects, start a dialogue in the drawing. I know Philippe Saxer just a little bit from some encounters with him personally and with his artistic work. However, he has so many different facets that it would be presumptuous on my part to say that I know Philippe Saxer, that I know who he is and could interpret his work. To all this I am not entitled. I simply feel that his ambiguous work comes from his multi-layered seismic, multi-faceted personality, that it confronts and inflames the environment and its events, while in the drawing a particularly appropriate form can be found which is not stopped by any technical problem. For contemporary artists, it has become incredibly difficult today to show a picture of reality in whatever form. The drawings of Saxer create their own reality, which is honest and true. It is a deeply existential art. Therefore it can also not exclude pain and impending rupture.