Haese was inspired by the sense of discovery in Klee’s work; Klee “unlocked the secret powers of an untapped reservoir full of vibrant energies”.

An initially self-taught painter and draughtsman, Günter Haese investigated the manifold moving forms of nature from the start of his career, giving birth to a unique and personal aesthetic universe. Spurred on by deep intellectual curiosity, he developed his work through various fields of knowledge ranging from cybernetic theorems to cellular structures. 

Haese studied at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf during the 1950s under the painter Bruno Goller and the sculptor Ewald Mataré, and worked with the latter on the monumental bronze doors for Cologne Cathedral. 

Though driven by a primary interest in painting, Haese focused on the creative process, the intention of homo faber, rather than the conventional pictorial and sculptural canons, using L-bars and tools like clamps, pliers and welding equipment.¹ 

It is in 1962 that he began to use brass wire with clockwork parts and springs as components of his kinetic sculptures. Fascinated by little cogwheels, balance wheels and tiny trigger mechanisms, Haese initially arranged them in spirals on a flat surface with borders to create intriguing monotypes and then went on to produce delicate, lightweight, oscillating structures that recall the abstract constructs and calligraphic symbols of Paul Klee, his spiritual point of reference. Importance attaches to the ideal link between these two artists: Haese was inspired by the sense of discovery in Klee’s work; Klee “unlocked the secret powers of an untapped reservoir full of vibrant energies”.² 

His first solo show, featuring “metal objects” and held at the Museum Ulm in 1964, aroused such broad interest among critics that he was invited the same year to hold a show at the New York Museum of Modern Art, which proved a great success, and took part in documenta III in Kassel. 

In 1966 he represented Germany in the Venice Biennale. Seeking to explore the laws of the balance through movement and equilibrium, he generated “a quivering mobility of slender, fragile elements, a transparency of gestures […] a vibration of antennae […].”³ 

The singular plasticity of his work of the early 1960s gave way in time to delicately organised basic forms like circles, arcs and rectangles in which the slender and mobile interior is also densely constructed and made up of clockwork parts interconnected in a rhythmically dynamic way. An interweaving of mesh and perspectives governed by geometric modularities that suggest the musicality and sensuality of living creatures despite the absence of any mechanical propulsion. Haese stated: “I am not a kinetic artist. Mechanically generated movement in an artwork has not fit into my concept so far. The movements of my objects always return to their original form. There must be a basic form, and it must become visible again after certain intervals.”⁴ 

Haese’s work shares some compositional features with that of the internationally renowned Fausto Melotti,⁵ one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century. According to Melotti: 

“The three parameters that can be used to measure the life of a sculpture are plastic invention, the concept of synthesis and the musical concept. If one of these fails, so does the sculpture. […] Ambiguity as an aspect of melancholy is a crucial component of the work […] Seldom found in Kandinsky, it is always present in Klee and strengthens his work. […] Metaphysical freedom determines and defines the work of art.”⁶ 

This holds for the Cerruti Hermes (formerly Ostara), a mature example of Haese’s sculpture, an object of biomorphic appearance in which different geometrical shapes interlock to create a closed body. The playful correspondence between title and composition also leaves room for the viewer to grasp mutiple imaginative allusions and new ideas.⁷ 

Haese had already produced “graphic objects” of a similar kind in terms of composition and aesthetic impact during the 1970s, such as Yama (1973, fig. 1), exhibited in the artist’s solo show of 1975 at the prestigious Marlborough Gallery in New York, and Minerva (1978), presented in the exhibition Raumgrafiken at the Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaft, Nuremberg, in 1979. 

This marked the start of the artist’s keen interest in an ideal pantheon of divinities developed through new sculptures named after archaic mythologic figures like Yama, the god of death and the afterlife, and Minerva, originally the Roman goddess of all crafts and trades. The work in the Cerruti Collection belongs to this group. The god Hermes, protector of wayfarers from peril, and Ostara - Eostre in early German - the ancient northern divinity of rebirth, are combined in this sculpture, where oscillating abstract elements create a thrust of vital energy recalling the work of Melotti, which is probably what attracted Francesco Federico Cerruti. 

It was bought at the show Günter Haese. Kinetische Objekte held at the gallery of Raimund Thomas in Munich in the spring of 2006. Evidence of the personal link between the collector and the artist is provided by the dedication to Francesco Cerruti written by Haese that April on the frontispiece of the copy of the catalogue raisonné Günter Haese. Verzeichnis der Skulpturen now in the Cerruti Collection Archives. 

Elena Inchingolo 

¹ Munich 2019, p. 14. 

² New York 1975, p. 9. 

³ Venice 1966b, np. 

⁴ Munich 2019, p. 70. 

⁵ Like Haese, Melotti took part in the 1966 Venice Biennale (XXXIII Esposizione Biennale Internazionale d’Arte di Venezia) but in the section Aspetti del primo astrattismo italiano. Milano-Como 1930-1940 curated by Umbro Apollonio. 

⁶ Melotti 1981, pp. 48-49, 57. 

⁷ Munich 2019, p. 10.