Hans Krusi - EX HK (Experts) - Alga Marghen

Alga Marghen blessing us with this superb discovery. Born in Zürich, raised in Speicher, Appenzell, Switzerland. He never knew his father, and only consciously met his mother in 1936, a year before her death. At the age of two, he was placed with foster parents, and into an orphanage when he was ten. It was only in the mid-1970s that Krüsi began to paint and to sell his postcard-size pictures, along with his flowers, or at flea markets and on the train. Some time later, in around 1980, a gallery owner discovered the painting street-vendor. Swept along on the new wave of the art-world's enthusiasm for the "Wilde Malerei" (Wild Painting) of the 1980s, Krüsi rapidly achieved the status of a widely popular, artistic celebrity.From 1975 Hans Krüsi created an enormous, almost chaotic oeuvre. His art was chiefly informed by his idea of creatures and creation. The cow in its Alpine pasture, the man in front of his house, the cat, the pigeon - they are all creatures living together in the great union of nature; sometimes in paradisiacal harmony, at others under mutual, demoniacal threat. The thematic scope - an endless parade in Krüsi's paintings - is immense. While his proximity to Appenzell folk art is evident, his treatment of the popular, traditional motif of the "Alpaufzug", - the ceremonial transfer of cattle and household goods to Alpine summer pastures - is an expressive explosion of colour.

Following his Art Brut this mysterious tape re-issue mixing field recordings of insects, sheeps and distant bells with primitive chanting, percussive noises and distorted radio folk songs , testifies to the experimental daring of this artist, and the wide scope of his creativity.