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Expert team of the Visual Art Section at the Goetheanum (Photo: Duilio A. Martins)
Expert team of the Visual Art Section at the Goetheanum (Photo: Duilio A. Martins)

Press release -

Art is necessary for life: New expert team in the Visual Art Section at the Goetheanum

Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland, 22 May 2020

Art is necessary for life
New expert team in the Visual Art Section at the Goetheanum

One of the tasks of the Visual Art Section at the Goetheanum is to create and communicate art in all its visual, tangible qualities. Christiane Haid, the new director of the section, has appointed a team of artists in order to meet the needs of this broad professional field.

Art is a fundamental necessity of life. «Just as the artistic process is a creative process, the perception of art in humans also stimulates creativity and self-examination in the viewer», says Christiane Haid. She is the new head of the Visual Art Section, a task she has assumed in addition to the leadership of the Section for the Literary Arts and Humanities. As a literary scholar, art historian, and painter she is interested in working on the relationship between the individual artistic genres and the human being. This is all the more important since art is beneficial to human health and thus represents a balance to one-sided cognitive-technical activities.

The research areas at the Goetheanum, the School of Spiritual Science, includes the dimensions of art which – as with Hilma af Klint – explore an approach to supersensory realities. To make these accessible in practice, artistic activities and reflections on art take place within the section. In addition, the section will be involved in the design of rooms at the Goetheanum and by autumn will also be establishing studios for artists. The section curates exhibits at the Goetheanum with examples from the artistic and visual work of Rudolf Steiner and other anthroposophically inspired artists. The goal is to make these artworks accessible to a wider public and to convey Rudolf Steiner‘s impulses and suggestions for art and aesthetics. Currently, an art project on the coronavirus is underway, which will be used to create an exhibition at the Goetheanum in the summer.

A team of experts will support section head Christiane Haid in all these tasks, composed of Rik ten Cate (sculpture), Yaike Dunselman (architecture), Barbara Schnetzler (sculpture, exhibitions) and Pieter van der Ree (architecture).

(2050 characters/SJ; translation by Bettina Hindes)

Online, Newsletter www.sbk.goetheanum.org/en

Contact Person Christiane Haid, sbk@goetheanum.ch

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The Goetheanum is the headquarters for the School of Spiritual Science and the General Anthroposophical Society. The School of Spiritual Science with its eleven sections is active worldwide in research, development, teaching, and the practical implementation of its research findings and is supported by the Anthroposophical Society.

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Sebastian Jüngel

Sebastian Jüngel

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