BIOGRAPHY

MILESTONES

John (Jean) Stutz grew up in Rorschach and made an apprenticeship as a toolmaker with subsequent studies in business and chemistry. He lived for many years with his family in Meilen (Zurich) and moved back to Rorschach in 1990. He was involved in the family business producing semi finished reactive chemicals and became later its CEO until 1998. During his professional activities, he started painting with oil and acrylics in 1963 and has developed since 1990 new casting techniques by pouring solvent free polyurethane elastomers by means of mixing and dispensing machines. At the same time he developed new cutting techniques in burning out figures and objects from solid steel plates to create larger steel sculptures. In cooperation with his staff, he built in his own atelier over 600 pieces of art work, finding worldwide entry in galleries, art shows, office buildings, museums and open air culture displays.

 

John Stutz is always pushing himself in finding new ways for the applications of bubble free resin surfaces in any layer thickness and this by means of atypical methods and otherwise unknown casting compounds that he personally developed. His work is therefore divided in cast resin pictures, sculptures and art installations.

 

With contacts and by recommendation of Harald Szeemann, he started creating squares and rectangular shapes out of resin spatulas in any thicknesses, also inserting metal or wooden parquet pieces into or around the surfaces. Fascinated by the enormous possibilities of the applied polyurethane resins, he has concentrated himself since 1990 to discover new ways and methods of perfectly pouring elastomers.

 

The family company developed just for him previously unknown liquid casting resins for pouring into steel frames offering bubble free or textured surfacing once cured out. This resulted in pictures of any chosen color and thickness in just one cast layer. Recently the Stutz atelier produced 7-8 foot high pictures mounted together in form of triangles and squares, with monochrome surfaces or in different colors, textures and inlays made out of metals or wood.

 

The second activity includes the cutting out of steel plates in thicknesses up to 12 inches and demonstrates unusual new burning methods for creating sculptures. Some of his monumental sculptures of up to 10 feet height found great acceptance and appreciation at the 2011 Biannual Exhibition in St. Petersburg, Russia. 8 foot triangles out of real foamed aluminum panels coated with a hard polyurethane decoration in various colors also found in 2012 enormous interests at the Kornhaus-Museum in Rorschach. On the search for new creations, this artist also built a group of polyurethane balls between 1-3 foot in diameter, named “crying world” and showing the world’s open mouth and  teeth to lament against the misuse of all resources.

 

John Stutz is also currently presenting himself by means of live performances and some polarizing actions to pursue worthwhile goals.

 

On the 6th of April 2011, for example, he placed early in morning his project “I like the 3 giants” in front of the main entrances of the banks UBS, CS and Cantonal Bank at the Zurich Parade Square, combined with a flyer explaining the life performance “I love CS, UBS, CB” in support the banks against the attacks of the media during the financial crash period of many famous banks since 2008.

 

The next life performance in October 2012 took place on the staircase at the entry of the Swiss National Bank (SNB), Zurich, during the 14th Art Zurich Show next to SNB. 300 pieces of golden polyurethane nuggets up to 1 ft. in diameter were placed there in order to support SNB in the decision to buy 500 billion of Euro currency to defend the Swiss Franc.

 

At the opening of the gallery season late in August of 2013, John Stutz placed with his staff in the entry hall of the new upgraded “Migros Museum” his installation “The curators”, again combined with a flyer to manifest against the impossibility of young or lesser known artists to obtain entry to the art galleries. The display showed 3 heads as well as pictures of the famous art tycoons Sam Keller and Ivan Wirth and were surrounded by an aluminum fence.

 

Further, in the park in front of the Kornhaus-Museum in Rorschach, John Stutz placed in 2014 his bell tower construction of “5 to 12” out of 19 real bronze bells. The steel construction weighing 1 ton was decorated with polyurethane coatings in various colors, also allowing the spectators to ring the bells. After 3 months of this display, Stutz was unfortunately forced by the local city authority to remove this life performance display due to the fact that one of the neighbors could no longer accept the nice (and already muffled) sound of the bells.

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born on January 14 in Rorschach/Switzerland

apprenticeship as a toolmaker

studies in business and chemistry

start in the family business

study trips and first art works in oil

CEO of the Sunbeam-Holding until 1998

first overseas exhibition (Dallas/USA)

intense exchange with Harald Szeemann

first experiments with polyurethan

first steelworks

first exhibition with monumental

steelworks at the opening of a Swiss bank.

developement of the casting pieces

retirement as CEO and main focus on art

acquisition Zurich insurance

acquisition FIFA headquarters Zurich

acquisition community of Horgen/ZH

steel-Installation «I love the 3 giants»

at Zurcher Paradeplatz square

performance of Katsura Khan in front of steelworks at Biennale St. Petersburg

first works with expanded aluminium

exhibition at Kornhaus Museum Rorschach

installation «good luck euro» in front of federal bank of switzerland

Exhibition Kornhaus Museum Rorschach

live performance «the curators» migros-museum,

Zurich

exhibitions in Europe

installations

«crying planets»

«deers + foxes»

© 2016 John Stutz

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