M. Vänçi Stirnemann (born 21 April 1951 in urich as ''Manfred Ulrich Stirnemann'') is a Swiss artist, author and curator. He has been active in performance art, copy art (Xerox art),

mail art Mail art, also known as postal art and correspondence art, is an artistic movement centered on sending small-scale works through the postal service. It initially developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence Scho ...

and installation art. In 1997 he initiated the collaborative performance

artist trading cards Artist trading cards (ATCs) is a conceptual art project initiated by the Swiss artist M. Vänçi Stirnemann in 1997. He called it a ''Collaborative Cultural Performance''. Artist trading cards are 2.5 by 3.5 inches in size, the same format as mod ...

Life

Stirnemann graduated from the Zurich-based art school F+F founded by progressive artists and art teachers in 1971. His mentor

Serge Stauffer Serge Stauffer (born Werner Oscar Stauffer, 8 June 1929 – 17 September 1989) was a Swiss artist and art educator. He was one of the co-founders of the F+F Schule für experimentelle Gestaltung in Zurich and known for his German translations of th ...

(who translated Marcel Duchamp's writings into German) became a close friend. Early on, Stirnemann studied genres like Mannerism,

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...

, Surrealism, Art Brut,

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

and

media art New media art includes artworks designed and produced by means of electronic media technologies, comprising virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D prin ...

, and made himself familiar with artists like

Marcel Duchamp Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (, , ; 28 July 1887 – 2 October 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso ...

Marcel Broodthaers Marcel Broodthaers (28 January 1924 – 28 January 1976) was a Belgian poet, filmmaker, and visual artist with a highly literate and often witty approach to creating art works. In 1943-1951 he was a member of a Communist party. Life and career ...

and

Dieter Roth Dieter Roth (April 21, 1930 – June 5, 1998) was a Swiss artist best known for his artist's books, editioned prints, sculptures, and works made of found materials, including rotting food stuffs. He was also known as Dieter Rot and Diter Rot. ...

. In the 1980s, he became known to a wider public with art performances and installations. Until today, he made more than 180 international solo and collaborative performances. Stirnemann is also a curator and editor of art catalogues and art magazines. Since 1983, he publishes the art edition "copy-left". As a freelance journalist he published in different newspapers and magazines, and he was an editor at the

Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF; "Swiss Radio and Television") is a Swiss broadcasting company created on 1 January 2011 through the merger of radio company Schweizer Radio DRS (SR DRS) and television company Schweizer Fernsehen (SF). The n ...

, a Swiss broadcasting company.

Work

In 1986, Stirnemann was founder member of the performance groups ''The Nomads'' and ''a' battery a"''. In 1990, he initiated the international groups ''Feed back and forth'' and ''POW.WOW''. Together with his group ''The Nomads'' he participated in the documenta 8 in Kassel,

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, in 1987, and in the Olympic Arts Festival in Calgary,

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, in 1988. With a grant from the

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (french: Conseil des arts du Canada), commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown corporations of Canada, Crown corporation established in 1957 as an arts council of the Government of Canada. It acts as the fede ...

he was Visiting Foreign Artist in Calgary in 1990. Since the early 1980, Stirnemann participated in

(correspondence art) and realised installations - many of them copy art projects. As a curator he organized and co-organized various art events and exhibitions, among them the "Kunstszene Zurich" 1991-92 with 260 participating artists and 18 exhibition locations. In 1997, he organized and curated the exposition "FLUXUS AND BEYOND" with the

fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finished product. Fluxus ...

artist

Ben Patterson Benjamin Patterson (May 29, 1934 – June 25, 2016) was an American musician, artist, and one of the founders of the Fluxus movement. Biography Benjamin Patterson was born in Pittsburgh on May 29, 1934. He attended the University of Michigan fr ...

. From 1988 onwards, Stirnemann made radio features about modern art for the alternative radio LoRa. As a writer and composer of New Music he worked with musicians and composers, among them

Michael Heisch Michael Heisch (born 20 May 1963) is a Swiss composer, double bass player, cultural critic and illustrator. Life Heisch was born in 1963 in Schaffhausen as son of the writer and satirist Peter Heisch. From the age of seven he received piano les ...

. In 1994, he opened the second-hand bookshop and gallery "INK art&text" in Zurich which existed until 2006. From 2005–2016, he taught art and design at the Hochschule Luzern in Switzerland. In 1997, Stirnemann initiated the project

, a "collaborative cultural performance" which became a worldwide success. Artist trading Ccrds have the same format as commercial

trading cards A trading card (or collectible card) is a small card, usually made out of paperboard or thick paper, which usually contains an image of a certain person, place or thing (fictional or real) and a short description of the picture, along with other ...

but are original artworks or small series, signed and dated on the back-side and swapped between the participants - usually at regularly held trading sessions like they exist in about 30 cities worldwide today. Stirnemann himself has created more than 17,000 artist trading cards, of which he has exchanged more than 14,000. Between 1997 and 2004, he published 333 artist trading card editions with contributions from more than 800 people from 40 countries.Stirnemann, M. Vänçi (ed.). Artist Trading Cards, issues 1-333 (limited editions of 20, 15 artists each). Zurich, copy-left, 1997-2004. Another ongoing project is his ''subjective encyclopedia'', a collection of comments, images and everyday poetry, each entry assigned to a distinct lemma. About 500 (of more than 1000) lemmata are available on a website. Stirnemann was awarded grants and distinctions from many different institutions, among them the

Swiss Federal State The rise of Switzerland as a federal state began on 12 September 1848, with the creation of a federal constitution in response to a 27-day civil war, the ''Sonderbundskrieg''. The constitution, which was heavily influenced by the United Stat ...

, the canton and the city of Zurich, the canton Aargau,

Pro Helvetia The foundation Pro Helvetia is a public foundation of Switzerland. Presidents *From 1939 to 1943, Heinrich Häberlin. *From 1944 to 1952, Paul Lachenal. *From 1952 to 1964, Jean-Rodolphe de Salis. *From 1965 to 1970, Michael Stettler. *From 19 ...

, the Cassinelli-Vogel-Stiftung, the

, and the Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation. His copy-art projects were supported by

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (; also known simply as Xerox) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox is headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut (ha ...

. 2006-07 he was awarded a grant and a stay at the studio in Paris (

Cité internationale des arts The Cité internationale des arts is an artist-in-residence building complex which accommodates artists of all specialities and nationalities in Paris. It comprises two sites, one located in the Marais and the other in Montmartre. Approximatel ...

) from the city of Zurich.

References

External links

Official artist trading card websiteSubjective Encyclopedia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stirnemann, M. Vanci Swiss contemporary artists Swiss performance artists Conceptual artists Swiss curators 1951 births Living people