Gottfried Honegger - A Farewell to painting

I can remember when the American artist Frank Stella visited me in Paris in the 1960s, when we were both showing in the same gallery. He saw my Bild-Silouetten-Bilder (Silhouetted Image Pictures) and enthusiastically said he would adopt the idea. No sooner said than done—he called his pictures “shaped canvases.”
Throughout all those years, I executed more and more works with autonomous shapes. Why? How? For what reason? I had no answer, for I didn’t even ask myself the question.
It is only now that I’m aware of my intention. It took me fifty years to understand and clarify my rebellion against pictures and easel painting. Now I think I grasp it. In a civilization that constantly seeks novelty in every sphere, art spurs reactions to ideas that are already “in the air.”
Today I am trying to integrate my art into the wall, into architecture itself, through open, unframed reliefs. Simply in order to recover the idea of total artwork, the global view of the world characteristic of Gothic period.
For me, it’s a question of rendering visible the artificial environment in which we live. Architecture, interior design, fashion, food, and so on should all be one entity. And yet we should not forsake the visual diversity to which we are accustomed. I am not seeking a specific style, because what we need now is a holistic culture of beauty, diversity, and truth.

Gottfried Honegger