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">performance art">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 mail, postal service. It developed out of what eventually became Ray Johnson's New York Correspondence School and ...

and installation art. In 1997 he initiated the collaborative performance artist trading cards.

Life

Stirnemann graduated from the Zurich-based art school F+F founded by progressive artists and art teachers in 1971. His mentor Serge Stauffer (who translated Marcel Duchamp's writings into German) became a close friend. Early on, Stirnemann studied genres like

Mannerism Mannerism is a style in European art that emerged in the later years of the Italian High Renaissance around 1520, spreading by about 1530 and lasting until about the end of the 16th century in Italy, when the Baroque style largely replaced it ...

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an anti-establishment art movement that developed in 1915 in the context of the Great War and the earlier anti-art movement. Early centers for dadaism included Zürich and Berlin. Within a few years, the movement had s ...

Surrealism Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

Art Brut Art Brut is an English indie rock band. Their debut album, '' Bang Bang Rock & Roll'', was released on 30 May 2005, with its follow up, ''It's a Bit Complicated'', released on 25 June 2007. Named after French painter Jean Dubuffet's definition ...

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

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. It comprises virtual art, computer graphics, computer animation, digital art, interactive art, sound art, Internet art, video games, robotics, 3D ...

, 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, Futurism and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Pica ...

Marcel Broodthaers Marcel Broodthaers (28 January 1924 – 28 January 1976) was a Belgian poet, filmmaker, and visual artist. Early life Broodthaers was born on 28 January 1924 in Brussels, Belgium. Career Broodthaers was briefly associated with the surrealist ...

and

Dieter Roth Dieter Roth (April 21, 1930 – June 5, 1998) was a Swiss artist who gained recognition for his diverse body of work, which included artist's books, editioned prints, sculpture, and creations from found materials, including rotting foodstuffs. ...

. 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 ("Swiss Radio and Television"), shortened to SRF, is a subsidiary of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR), operating in German-speaking Switzerland. SRF was created on 1 January 2011 through the merger of r ...

, 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 documenta 8 was the eighth edition of documenta, a quinquennial contemporary art exhibition. It was held between 12 June and 20 September 1987 in Kassel, West Germany. The artistic directors were Manfred Schneckenburger and Edward F. Fry. P ...

Kassel Kassel (; in Germany, spelled Cassel until 1926) is a city on the Fulda River in North Hesse, northern Hesse, in Central Germany (geography), central Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Regierungsbezirk Kassel (region), Kassel and the d ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, in 1987, and in the Olympic Arts Festival in

Calgary Calgary () is a major city in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806 making it the third-largest city and fifth-largest metropolitan area in C ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, in 1988. With a grant from the

Canada Council The Canada Council for the Arts (), 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 is Canada's public arts funder, with a mandate to ...

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 performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...

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. 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 artist trading cards, 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 t ...

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 State ...

, the canton and the city of Zurich, the canton Aargau, Pro Helvetia, the Cassinelli-Vogel-Stiftung, the

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

Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...

. 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. Approximately ...

) 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