Andy Storchenegger: Die Augen gehen auf

About

Andy Storchenegger completed a Master of Fine Arts at the École cantonale d’art (School of Art and Design) in Lausanne in 2011 and has studied ceramics and polymers at the HEAD in Geneva. Since 2006, he has exhibited continuously and in various countries such as Switzerland, Italy, The Netherlands, Germany, Liechtenstein, Spain, South Korea and Tonga. He was a guest lecturer at the Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam. Since 2009, he has been teaching at the Höhere Fachschule für Gestaltung und Kunst (Higher Technical College for Design and Art) in St. Gallen. In 2021, he will be artist in residence in Zambia, Southern Africa, granted by Pro Helvetia.

Andy Storchenegger's artistic practice engages with issues of cultural connotation and alienation. His fascination for the «wild» and «primitive» preserved in archaic customs of ancient cultures and local Swiss traditions has led him to field trips to the South Pacific, South America, and Africa.




In his artworks a synthesis of similar formal aspects found in different cultures culminates. Ritual masks are often a starting point for his own sculptures. While the traditional masks themselves serve as pieces of art, they function on a much higher level within the social ethos of the community. The masks are a necessary component of a social, intellectual and artistic whole.



In Storchenegger’s pieces the essence of a universal idea transforms into a new depiction, where often a slight shift in colour or chosen material alienates the piece from its supposedly original intention. Through this change of parameters a variety of different associations opens up. It allows a direct connection and an individual reading of the work on the backdrop of one's own cultural identity.