Nicolas Schöffer (; 6 September 1912 – 8 January 1992) was a Hungarian-born French cybernetic artist. Schöffer was born in Kalocsa, Hungary and lived in France from 1936 until his death in Montmartre, Paris in 1992.
He built his artworks on cybernetic theories of control and feedback primarily based on the ideas of Norbert Wiener. Wiener's work suggested to Schöffer an artistic process in terms of the circular causality of feedback loops that he used in a wide range of art genres. His career spanned painting, sculpture, architecture, urbanism, film, theatre, television and music. The quest for dematerialisation of the artwork and the pursuit of movement and dynamics became central themes of his work. He worked with the immaterial media space, time, light, sound and climate that he called the five topologies.
He liberated art genres from their spatial and temporal constraints by creating never-ending sound structures that can be heard all over the cybernetic city of the future, and by designing SCAM1, an automobile sculpture.
Schöffer declared the socialization of art as an important goal. According to his ideas, art should be available as a cultural asset equally to everyone without limitations. The playful and spectacular aspects of his works served the goal of gaining the attention of the audience and involving the viewer through participation in the creative processes. To make art universally available, he explored the possibilities of serial production.
Life and career
Schöffer was born in Kalocsa in the south of Hungary. His mother was a violinist and took care of his musical education, and encouraged him to draw. He took piano lessons from the age of seven. The father was a lawyer.
After elementary school, Schöffer continued to study with the Jesuits, despite his Jewish descent. This duality of religious education led to an openness towards other religious attitudes that is expressed by his idea of a universal religion in the cybernetic city of the future.
Thanks to the influence of his father, Schöffer left home to study law at the Royal Hungarian Pázmány Péter University in Budapest. After graduating as a doctor in law, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. In 1932 he took part in the winter exhibition of the national salon in Budapest. It was his only public appearance before the war in Hungary.
In 1936 he left Hungary and settled in Paris. Here, Schöffer continued his studies in the atelier Fernand Sabatté at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. In 1937 he participated in the Salon d'Automne and in 1938 in the Salon des Indépendants.
The Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (international exposition of art and technology in modern life) in 1937 had a decisive influence on Schöffer's career. The main attraction of the international exhibition, the palace of discoveries in the west wing of the Grand Palais aroused Schöffer's interest in scientific research and technical innovations. It was thanks to this interest that, just over a decade later, he came across Norbert Wiener's book about cybernetic principles that would radically change his views on art and induce an abrupt change in his artistic practice.
On 14 June 1940, Wehrmacht units marched into Paris. Schöffer fled to southern France and lived in the Aveyron area until his return after the liberation of Paris. During this period he met his first wife, Marie Rose Marguerite Orlhac. They married on February 22, 1945 in Capdenac.
After the war Schöffer and his wife returned to Paris. They lived at 12 rue de Paris in Clichy, and his wife ran an antique shop. Between 1945 and 1949 Schöffer experimented with painting and graphics until he came across Norbert Wiener's book.
Schöffer lived in the Villa des Arts from 1954, first on the fourth floor and later on the ground floor. La Villa des Arts was built on a site separated from the Montmartre Cemetery. In 1890, King Louis XV had a series of 67 studios built here for artists using materials dismantled from the Universal Exhibition. The stairs of the old Gare Saint Lazare were reused here.
Numerous artists lived and worked in the ateliers, among them Cézanne, Sisley, Marcoussis and Renoir. In his most active years Schöffer had two studios here, one of which previously belonged to Cézanne. Atelier No. 5, the former studio of an equestrian statue sculptor was renovated in 1964. It is the most spectacular atelier of the Villa des Arts. From 1964 Schöffer worked in studio no. 5 and also used studio no. 2.
His artistic breakthrough came in the 1950s. He took part in Documenta II (1959) and Documenta III (1964) in Kassel. In 1968 he took part in the Venice Biennale and was awarded the Grand Prize. He has achieved both international media exposure and institutional recognition.
In 1982, in recognition of his rich body of work, he was elected a member of the French Academy of fine arts. He was promoted to the rank of officer in the Légion d'Honneur in 1983. He was promoted to the rank of officer in the Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 1985. The award of the rank of commander in the Ordre National du Mérite followed in 1990.
In 1986, the artist suffered a brain haemorrhage and never recovered. During the last seven years of his life he used a wheelchair. He was cared for by his second wife, Eléonore de Lavandeyra, whom he married after Orlhac's death. Schöffer died in 1992, but his artworks were kept for decades in his original studio and Schöffer's intellectual legacy maintained. Eléonore de Lavandeyra Schöffer died on 15 January 2020.
Creative periods Schöffer's artistic career can be divided into three major periods by two clear turning points. He experimented and systematically sought his own artistic position during the early part of his career. The main body of his work belongs to the second period. Art historians distinguish three stages of the second creative period that are related to the theories Schöffer elaborated during these time spans. The third main creative period is marked by his return to two-dimensional works due to his incurable illness which impeded his free movement.
First creative period (1931-1950) The stylistic diversity of his first creative period is striking. This comes from a desire to try different techniques and subjects. Cathedrals, depictions of Jesus, nude scenes with Turkish figures, portraits of men, surrealistic creatures with double faces, animals that are only depicted with their characteristic features, various still lifes and rare humorous drawings can be found in the repertoire. He did not make exact copies but he imitated masters of art history to understand their creative methods. Since works of this period were rarely dated it is difficult to establish a chronology, but a development from figurative to abstract works and an approach from the surface into space can be discovered. The transition went from figurative works through a phase of lyric abstraction to geometric abstraction. About the end of this phase Schöffer experimented with a painting pendulum and with a paint gun.
On his way from the surface of a canvas into space the first step was thinking in three dimensions. He imagined an abstract three-dimensional construction and drew its projection onto the surface of the two-dimensional support material. The background was no longer to be viewed as such, but as the space in which the objects depicted exist in three dimensions. The image was only its projection onto a screen.
The second step was to execute the constructions imagined in three dimensions as relief images. The reliefs have a main view and the parts stand out only moderately. A back surface supports the relief. The influence of Mondrian's Neoplasticism can already be felt in these relief images. The elements of this artistic language were the pairs of opposites horizontal/vertical, large/small, light/dark and the reduction of colours to the three primary colours: red, yellow and blue as well as the non-colours: black, gray and white. Later the rear support disappears and the reliefs leave the wall to enter space as sculptural works but still with a single main view. They mark the transition to the second artistic period.
Second creative period (1950-1986)
Schöffer's main achievements emerged during the second creative period. The rapid execution of the idea, the speed of creation was his central concern. Cybernetics enabled the automation of the creative process and secured a satisfying speed of artistic production. The perception of the viewer was central to the concept of the works. His artistic practise is characterized by a harmonious combination of art, technology and science which requires teamwork. He left part of the creative process to his colleagues. In several cases he only created the algorithm and let the program conjure up the spectacle. On the other hand, he also envisaged a participatory art in which the recipient changes the work of art, redesigns it and thus becomes the creator of the work himself. He did not shy away from having some of his artworks mass-produced. He questioned the traditional function of art and designed a cybernetic city where art plays the major role and is the organisational principle of its functioning.
Spatiodynamism (1950-1957) After a few initial sculptural works, Schöffer gave up the emphasized main view and created sculptures in which all views were of equal importance. He concentrated on the negative space within the sculpture and on the dynamic perception of the viewer as he/she moves around. The first sculptural works have a functionalist approach. Similar to the Russian constructivists, Schöffer took industrial tasks as a source of inspiration. He planned semaphores, traffic signals, airport flight control signalling systems, clocks, power line pylons, among others.
Later he abandoned real tasks and shaped the rhythm of the space. He concentrated on the negative space between the vertical and horizontal steel parts of the structure that was holding permanently fixed rectangular and circular plates. These were at first coloured, later uncoloured polished steel. All views of the sculptures became equally important.
Schöffer was able to present himself to the public in his new role as a sculptor as early as 1950. The Galerie des deux Iles organized an exhibition entitled Schöffer Plasticien, the Galerie Harriet Hubbard Ayer presented the work of Schöffer and J.M. Savage entitled Les mobiles de l'Amour. In 1951 Schöffer took part in the Salon de la Jeune Sculpture. In 1952, the Gallery Mai showed an exhibitionthe to the public the title of which, Oeuvres Spatiodynamic, already contains the expression Spatiodynamic.
He worked out the extensive theory of Spatiodynamism (1950–1957) that he explains in his first book. Most of the spaciodynamic Sculptures were still static, only a few of them were works of kinetic art. Spatiodynamic 27 called CYSP0 was the last piece of the series and a preparation to the creation of the first cybernetic sculpture of art history.
Luminodynamism (1957-1959) The basic concept of the LUX series is similar to that of the light-space-modulator created by Moholy-Nagy, but the structure of the sculpture is different. The sculptures consist of a construction with horizontal and vertical square profiles and of the permanently fixed discs and plates. The ratio of the structure is based on the golden section. The construction is illuminated by colored and white light sources and the shadows on the walls are considered as part of the work. Schöffer also used a semi-transparent screen. This resulted in multiple possible readings of the work. Schöffer submitted the basic principle on April 14, 1956 to the patent office and it was registered on August 25, 1958 as a patent. Schöffer elaborated the theory of Luminodynamism (1957-1959) .