Serge Stauffer

Serge Stauffer (born Werner Oscar Stauffer, 8 June 1929 – 17 September 1989) was a Swiss artist and art educator. He was one of the co-founders of the F+F Schule für experimentelle Gestaltung in Zurich and known for his German translations of the works of Marcel Duchamp. Stauffer can be considered to have pioneered art as research.

From 1952 to 1955, Stauffer trained as a photographer under Hans Finsler and Alfred Willimann at the Kunstgewerbeschule Zürich KGSZ. During this period, he met his future wife Doris Stauffer-Kloetzer.

Stauffer first became known for his German translation of Eugène Ionesco's play The Bald Soprano, which premiered at the Klein-Theater Bern in 1956 (among other actors, its cast included Daniel Spoerri) and was published by Luchterhand in 1959.

As a photographer, Stauffer worked for Josef Müller-Brockmann’s graphic design studio, before returning to the KGSZ in 1957 to teach photographics and experimental photography. From 1957 to 1964, he designed exhibitions, catalogs, and posters. Among other projects, he worked on Dokumentation über Marcel Duchamp (1960), an exhibition organised by Max Bill at Zurich’s Museum of Design. Stauffer’s early work includes the playful object Jardin public (1960), which was published as an edition at the Moderna Museet in in 1961. In the period 1962–1964, he undertook comprehensive studies on optical illusions, which he called geometrical-optical illusions (g.o.t), using geometrical drawings and photogrammes. From 1964 to 1965 Stauffer taught at the Bath Academy of Art, in Corsham, England.

In 1964, Stauffer and Hansjörg Mattmüller laid the foundation for an experimental arts class. A year later, in 1965, the class opened its doors as the F+F (short for "Form und Farbe", i.e., form and colour) at the KGSZ. Following a move to abolish the F+F course on Teamwork, established by Doris Stauffer, and to introduce "unacceptable teaching conditions", in March 1970 a council of students and teachers jointly decided to dissolve the F+F and to dismiss all teaching staff. Following this decision, Bendicht Fivian, Peter Gygax, Peter Jenny, Hansjörg Mattmüller, Doris Stauffer, and Serge Stauffer established the F+F Schule für experimentelle Gestaltung, a privately run art school, in January 1971. One of their rolemodels for a liberated art-education was the Summerhill School in Leiston, Suffolk, England.

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