Diet Sayler

Diet Sayler

Diet Sayler
Born 1939
Timișoara, Romania
Nationality German
Education Technical University of Timisoara
Known for Painter
Movement Constructive art
Awards Camille Graeser

Diet Sayler (born in 1939 in Timișoara, Romania) is a German painter and sculptor.

Education, early work

AK59 1969, oil on paper, Museum of Modern Art, New York

Diet Sayler studied Structural Engineering at the Technical University of Timișoara (1956-1961) and Painting under Julius Podlipny.[1] In the early 1960s he created an abstract painting that was subsequently defamed as Western and decadent and excluded from all exhibitions.[2] It was not until 1968, during the Prague Spring, that the exhibition “5 young artists” (Bertalan, Cotosman, Flondor, Molnar and Sayler) in Galeria Kalinderu in Bucharest showed abstract-constructive art in Romania for the first time. That was the breakthrough. Sayler moved to Bucharest and was able to exhibit abroad, but he was not allowed to travel. In 1971 the political climate changed. The spring of reforms in Bucharest came to an end, and afterwards Sayler’s works could no longer be shown. Sayler gave several interviews in the foreign press and as a result became very isolated.[3]

Emigration and international exhibitions

Bodenplastik 1982, acrylic glass and steel, 96,4 x 48,2 x 10,2 cm

On emigrating to Germany in 1973, Sayler moved the center of his work and life to Nuremberg, where from 1976 onwards he also worked as a lecturer alongside continuing his artistic work. In 1975 he showed his works at the Grand Palais in Paris for the first time. Solo shows followed at Galerie Grare in Paris, Galerie Hermanns in Munich, later at Galleria Lorenzelli in Milan, and at Galeria Edurne in Madrid. He now presented his work in many West European nations as well as in Brazil, Japan and the United States. In 1990, following the fall of the Iron Curtain, retrospectives of Diet Sayler were also shown in Eastern Europe, at the Czech Museum in Prague, Vasarely Museum in Budapest and the National Museum in Bucharest. The “konkret” exhibition series in Nuremberg (1980 to 1990), which Sayler directed, received international acclaim. Around 100 artists took part, including Dan Flavin, Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Martin, Vera Molnár, François Morellet, Aurélie Nemours, Mario Nigro, Leon Polk Smith and Jesús Rafael Soto. In 1988 Sayler curated the German-French exhibition “Construction and Conception” in Berlin. That same year he received the Camille Graeser Prize in Zurich.[4] Alongside the exhibitions of paintings, prints, sculpture and photography, a series of site-specific installations was also held, in Galerie Grare, Paris; Palazzo Ducale, Genoa; East West Gallery, New York; St. Peter’s, Cambridge; Gallery A, London; Ely Cathedral, Ely; University Gallery, Pilsen, Czech Republic; MUWA, Graz, Austria; Museo CAMEC, La Spezia, Italy.

Teaching

Wurfstück 1995, Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie, Regensburg

From 1992 to 2005 Diet Sayler was a professor of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg. In 1995 he worked as a guest professor at the Statens Kunstakademi in Oslo. As professor emeritus he was appointed 2006 director of the XIII International Summer Academy in Plauen.

Work

Malatesta 2002, Dyptichon, Neue Galerie Kassel

The young Diet Sayler was a great fan of Brâncuși and Malevich. At the start of his career he was above all inspired by Suprematism and Russian Revolution art. He studied the theories and works of the De Stijl and Bauhaus artists. Later he borrowed from Dadaism the principle of chance, on which his own works are based.[5] Sayler arrived at Concrete art by opposing political reality and the doctrine of socialist realism. The drive for change is a central theme in his work.[6] Sayler’s early works are highly colorful. In the years of rejection and opposition color disappeared from his work, which became black and white. Following the culture shock of emigration he concentrated on thin lines on white canvases. Towards the end of the 1980s Sayler developed a system of basic elements, which became a repertoire of his painting. Color returned.[7] He produced his ‘Paintings Pieces’, ‘Bivalences’ and ‘Throw Pieces’.[8] The late 1990s saw the creation of wall pieces or ‘Bodies’ and Engrams (‘Norigrammes’) as site-specific installations in the urban architecture.[9] Parallel to this he developed site-specific “Fugues” for the rooms of museums, churches or galleries.

Notable collections

Duccio 2004, Museum Ritter, Waldenbuch

Exhibitions – selected, since 2000

One Man Show, fortunaarte, Messina, 2008
One Man Show, Kunstmuseum Bayreuth, 2009
Teodosio 2002, acrylic on canvas, Privatsammlung Nürnberg
Gargano 2005, acrylic on canvas, 147 x 287 cm

Selected literature – monographs, catalogs

External links

References

  1. ↑ Lucio Barbera, Painting does not lie. In: Diet Sayler. La pittura non mente. Painting does not lie. Messina 2009, 48.
  2. ↑ Ruth Ziegler, Der Geruch der Farbe. In: Sich ein Bild machen von Diet Sayler. Nürnberg 2007, 74.
  3. ↑ Jan Andrew Nilsen, Staatsfeinde. Dissident Verlag, Oslo 1988.
  4. ↑ Dora Maurer, Some remarks on Diet Sayler's work. In: Diet Sayler. Nürnberg 1999, 37 f.
  5. ↑ Lucio Barbera, Painting does not lie. In: Diet Sayler. La pittura non mente. Painting does not lie. Messina 2009, 69.
  6. ↑ Marcello Faletra, La sfinge di Sayler. In: Diet Sayler. La pittura non mente. Painting does not lie. Messina 2009, 131-136.
  7. ↑ Ruth Ziegler, Der Geruch der Farbe. In: Sich ein Bild machen von Diet Sayler. Nürnberg 2007, 75.
  8. ↑ Ward Jackson, Diet Sayler und das Farbfeld. Von einem Maler für einen Maler. In: Diet Sayler. Nürnberg 1999, 134.
  9. ↑ Godehard Schramm, Narren Norigramme die Noris. In: Diet Sayler. Norigramme. Hg. v. Walter Anderle. Nürnberg 2001,6-13.
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