Lasst die Puppen tanzen/Turn the Puppets Loose

The collec­tion of the Muse­um für Gestal­tung inclu­des some 350 equal­ly impres­si­ve and tou­ch­ing pup­pets that embo­dy a wide varie­ty of cha­rac­ters. Turn the Pup­pets Loo­se takes an in-depth look at this varied ensem­ble ran­ging from cir­cus dan­cers to court ladies, rob­ber chiefs, and Dok­tor Faust, and fol­lows the popu­lar figu­re of Hans­jog­gel into the world of texts per­for­med in pup­pet theater.

This rich­ly illus­tra­ted volu­me focu­ses on Sophie Taeuber’s radi­cal figu­res for König Hirsch, the inspi­red pup­pet ensem­bles desi­gned by Otto Mor­ach, and Alex­an­dra Exter’s avant-gar­de mario­net­tes in the for­mal voca­bu­la­ry of the Rus­si­an Constructivists.

It also offers por­traits of the renow­ned gra­phic artist Josef Mül­ler-Brock­mann as a sta­ge desi­gner and the estab­lis­hed busi­ness­man Fred Schne­cken­bur­ger as the head of his own expres­si­ve pup­pet caba­ret. An intro­duc­to­ry essay dis­cus­ses the Zurich pup­pet tra­di­ti­on sur­roun­ding the school direc­tor Alfred Alt­herr as an inte­gral part of the tea­ching at the Kunst­ge­wer­be­schu­le, today’s Zür­cher Hoch­schu­le der Küns­te. The bio­gra­phies of the fea­tured artists and desi­gners offer asto­nis­hing insights.

Gestal­tung: NORM