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Hans Richter, 6.4.1888 Berlino, 1.2.1976 Minusio, probabilmente isr., cittadino tedesco, dal 1947 cittadino statunitense. Figlio di Moritz, proprietario terriero, e di Ida Gabriele Rothschild. 1) Elisabeth Steiner; 2) Maria van Vanselow; 3) Erna Niemeyer; 4) Frida Ruppel. Si formò nelle Acc. di belle arti di Berlino e Weimar (1908-09). Ferito, venne congedato dal servizio militare. Dall'autunno del 1916 fece parte del gruppo dadaista di Zurigo e partecipò a mostre e serate. Tornato in Germania nel 1919, dal 1933 visse in esilio. Nel 1937 si trasferì in Svizzera, dove fu direttore di produzione alla Central-Film di Zurigo e alla Tonfilm Frobenius di Basilea (dal 1939). Nel 1941 emigrò negli Stati Uniti su pressione della polizia degli stranieri di Basilea. Dal 1958 trascorse gli inverni ad Ascona, dal 1965 a Locarno. Fu tra i maggiori artisti e cineasti ted. dell'avanguardia.
Autore: Heinrich Riggenbach Traduzione: Valerio Ferloni
Hans Richter (Berlino, 6 aprile 1888 – Locarno, 1º febbraio 1976) è stato un regista e pittore tedesco.
Regista, teorico cinematografico e uno dei massimi sperimentatori di estetica cinematografica. Partito da esperienze pittoriche di orientamento astratto, dedicò le sue ricerche fin dall'inizio all'esigenza di articolare lo spazio figurativo in un movimento che uscisse dai limiti del quadro tradizionale.
Dopo i tentativi coi rotoli dipinti, di derivazione cinese, il passaggio al cinema divenne necessario. Nacquero così i cortometraggi Rythm 21, del 1921; Rythm 23, del 1923; Rythm 25, del 1925 e Filmstudie (Studio di un film, del 1926), esperimenti di composizione di oggetti in movimento che Richter successivamente riprese inserendovi un contenuto sociale in Inflation (Inflazione, del 1928) e squisitamente satirico nel famoso Vormittagsspuk (Fantasmi del mattino, del 1928)." I primi tentativi verso un nuovo cinema astratto possono essere ricondotti a Hans Richter, il quale ricercava un linguaggio fatto di forme basilari sullo spazio dello schermo. Seguendo gli esperimenti dei pittori cubisti, si servì di tecniche di cutout commiste a grafica e disegni per creare sequenze di quadrati e di rettangoli che si diradano e si espandono. Inframmezzate a questa “arte cruda” troviamo disegni lineari che riecheggiano la pura monotonia e la musica visiva dell'estetica di Viking Eggeling."
Trasferitosi negli Stati Uniti nel 1940, presentò nel 1947 il suggestivo Dreams That Money Can Buy ("I sogni che il denaro può comprare"), lungometraggio in sei episodi di ispirazione freudiana ideati da celebri artisti di avanguardia come Fernand Léger, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alexander Calder e Man Ray.
Nel 1957 presentò inoltre 8 x 8, brillante gioco di variazioni sul tema degli scacchi.
Hans Richter (6 April 1888 – 1 February 1976) was a German painter, graphic artist, avant-gardist, film-experimenter and producer. He was born in Berlin into a well-to-do family and died in Minusio, near Locarno, Switzerland.
Richter's first contacts with modern art were in 1912 through the "Blaue Reiter" and in 1913 through the "Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon [de]" gallery "Der Sturm", in Berlin. In 1914 he was influenced by cubism. He contributed to the periodical Die Aktion in Berlin. His first exhibition was in Munich in 1916, and Die Aktion published as a special edition about him. In the same year he was wounded and discharged from the army and went to Zürich and joined the Dada movement.
Richter believed that the artist's duty was to be actively political, opposing war and supporting the revolution. His first abstract works were made in 1917. In 1918, he befriended Viking Eggeling, and the two experimented together with film. Richter was co-founder, in 1919, of the Association of Revolutionary Artists ("Artistes Radicaux") at Zürich. In the same year he created his first Prélude (an orchestration of a theme developed in eleven drawings). In 1920 he was a member of the November group in Berlin and contributed to the Dutch periodical De Stijl.
Throughout his career, he claimed that his 1921 film, Rhythmus 21, was the first abstract film ever created. This claim is not true: he was preceded by the Italian Futurists Bruno Corra and Arnaldo Ginna between 1911 and 1912 (as they report in the Futurist Manifesto of Cinema), as well as by fellow German artist Walter Ruttmann who produced Lichtspiel Opus 1 in 1920. Nevertheless, Richter's film Rhythmus 21 is considered an important early abstract film.
About Richter's woodcuts and drawings Michel Seuphor wrote: "Richter's black-and-whites together with those of Arp and Janco, are the most typical works of the Zürich period of Dada." From 1923 to 1926, Richter edited, together with Werner Gräff and Mies van der Rohe, the periodical G. Material zur elementaren Gestaltung. Richter wrote of his own attitude toward film:
I conceive of the film as a modern art form particularly interesting to the sense of sight. Painting has its own peculiar problems and specific sensations, and so has the film. But there are also problems in which the dividing line is obliterated, or where the two infringe upon each other. More especially, the cinema can fulfill certain promises made by the ancient arts, in the realization of which painting and film become close neighbors and work together.
Richter moved from Switzerland to the United States in 1940 and became an American citizen. He taught in the Institute of Film Techniques at the City College of New York. While living in New York City, Richter directed two feature films, Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947) and 8 x 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements (1957) in collaboration with Max Ernst, Jean Cocteau, Paul Bowles, Fernand Léger, Alexander Calder, Marcel Duchamp, and others, which was partially filmed on the lawn of his summer house in Southbury, Connecticut. In 1957, he finished a film entitled Dadascope with original poems and prose spoken by their creators: Hans Arp, Marcel Duchamp, Raoul Hausmann, Richard Huelsenbeck, and Kurt Schwitters. After 1958, Richter spent parts of the year in Ascona and Connecticut and returned to painting.
In 1963, he directed the short film "From the Circus to the Moon" on the American artist Alexander Calder. Richter was also the author of a first-hand account of the Dada movement titled Dada: Art and Anti-Art which also included his reflections on the emerging Neo-Dada artworks.
Link:
https://www.artsper.com/fr/oeuvres-d-art-contemporain/edition/874905/il-caos-il-gesto-la-vita
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