Thursday 28 March 2013

Dieter Meier

48 Personen, 1974/75
From the series Remarkable Men


Dieter Meier (born 4 March 1945, Zürich) is a Swiss musician and conceptual artist who is best known for being the front man in the electronic music group Yello, which also includes music producer Boris Blank. He is a vocalist and lyricist, as well as manager and producer of this music group.

Born to a millionaire family, Meier is not only a performance artist, but a millionaire industrialist, a professional poker player, and also one time member of the Swiss national golf team. He is the father of four children: Eleonore Meier, Sophie Meier, Anna Meier and Francis Meier.

Dieter Meier now lives in Zurich with his wife Monique Meier. As a conceptual artist, he has been keeping himself busy with many art exhibitions. In 1972 as part of Documenta 5, Meier installed a commemorative plaque at the railway station in Kassel (Germany) which read: "On 23 March 1994, from 3 to 4 pm, Dieter Meier will stand on this plaque". He honored the promise 22 years later.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Meier






















Faces and Phrases, 1979 - 2009

My philosophy of life is really to learn something every day and to not see what looks like a failure as something to feel ashamed of. Failure is just another type of experience and unfortunately the world is so success driven that people are afraid of finding their own way. I think to stumble and fall is great art.

It's also to be in dialogue with people, to try to find out where you have things in common and what you can do together. That is for me such an incredible pleasure and that's probably why I love making movies because everybody contributes his talent to it and the director or producer is just holding all these talents together to create one hopefully good product.
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/archive/Godfather_of_techno_keeps_with_the_beat.html?cid=6411796

Untitled (12), 1970
From the series 29 Pictures within 5 minutes


Meier is an aesthete who has designed silk scarves, excels at poker, runs a 2200 hectare cattle ranch in Argentina which supplies the Zurich restaurant he owns and who has played for the Swiss national golf team. Significantly he has never kept any of this secret from anyone. His whole methodology revolves around a consummate blend of statement, art and music, laced with a worldly frivolity. In a musical world in which questions of authenticity dominate, in which Joe Strummer can be condemned for his private school education – something over which he had no choice whatsoever – and Pete Doherty can be lauded simply for his grimy fingernails and needle-perforated arms, Meier is next to unique. The man doesn’t even swear, something decidedly unusual in this line of work. In fact his upper class background and refined appearance are as much a part of his public persona as Elly Jackson’s wonky hair is part of La Roux’s. Few other people could get away with this: Genesis were always treated with suspicion for their private school roots, and Keane have been frequently ridiculed as “posh”. Meier, however, has confronted this prejudice straight on, even posing with his golf clubs for Melody Maker around the release of One Second in 1987.
Wyndham Wallace
http://thequietus.com/articles/03367-yello-dieter-meier-interview-touch


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