[neuekunstschule]
Basel · 1998—2023


How can I describe an event that lasted 25 years?  

In January 1997, I was confronted from different sides with the question: "how should a future-oriented art education be, if it follows completely different paradigms than those which are based in late-capitalism? How should an art study be, if man is more than the highest animal in an evolutionary series? What would it mean for contemporary art if, we, the human being, is more than a thinking piece of meat, if we are more than an intelligent hamburger, more than simply physical? What could it mean for the creating artist if the perceptible material world is only one part of reality? Is it possible to explore the invisible? To approach it with our thinking and feeling? If so, what will it do to our art? It was a huge challenge, but also a practice that was more meaningful to me, and my colleague and co-founder Julitta Lea Krebs, than exhibiting or developing our artistic careers. I then devoted myself to this work daily for the next 25 years. My work as a writer, painter and teacher were now united in this project.

Julitta Lea Krebs and I concentrated on the training of painters, because it was a framework that was manageable, it was right for the scale of this work. Beginning in January 1998, we taught artists, first in three, then in four-year full-time studies in which we have simultaneously developed and explored the meaning of a paradigm shift. The emerging path of study can be broken down into three main elements: How can I approach, think and explore the non-sensual, the aspects of the real that are buried under concepts like life, soul, spirit? How can I develop the skills I need in painting and drawing, in a way that is consistent with these thoughts? How can I develop sensitivity to the elements of painting, line, surface, form, color, figure, space, composition, narrative, etc., in such a way that they are no longer experienced as formal elements, but as acting realities, as events that take place within us as creators and observers?

The theoretical study included a detailed examination of spiritual science, as it is elaborated in anthroposophy, as well as in other sources, myths and traditions. In parallel, a theoretical and practical exploration of contemporary art theory and art history was a central aspect of the study.

Through a series of exercises, the so-called technical ability of the students, in drawing and painting, was brought to a high level. The exercises were designed in such a way that our work alternated between sharpening perception and awakening the imagination. The challenge was to penetrate deeper into our imagination, to the depth where the images no longer have the arbitrariness of a dream, and begin to act as imaginable truth.

The poles of practical and theoretical study appeared in their unity in the study of the artistic elements. Out of the conviction that in the arts ‹nothing is formal›, that is to say that colors, shapes and all other elements are always to be treated as a decisive reality, we have formed a series of "tools" that made it possible for students to achieve a lively, thoughtful and sensual experience with these elements.

The twenty-four years in which we worked daily on the creation of the neueKUNSTschule were transformative years in which the relationship between art and reality was constantly tested. When we decided to dissolve the training, we created a graduation festival year. At the center was the daily work of students and artists in search for new creation-myths as a source of inspiration. This process, accompanied by 80 daily lectures, culminated in an exhibition and final concert. During this year, six more exhibitions and seven concerts took place as a series of celebratory events in which different arts met together in search of an alternative narrative.

It is impossible to describe in a text the scope and richness of these years, the work of the graduates from this study is, perhaps, the best description.