KURT KOCHERSCHEIDT

1943 Kurt Kocherscheidt is born on July 6, 1943, as the son of Friedrich Kocherscheidt and Elisabeth Mayer in Klagenfurt, Carinthia. His father, a native of Velbert in the Rhineland, has come to Klagenfurt as a non-commissioned officer of the Mountain Infantry and has married Elisabeth Mayer, a native of Friesach, Carinthia, in January 1942. 1943-53 Soon after her son is born, Elisabeth Mayer moves back to Friesach to her father's house. August Mayer, a friend of the Vienna-based writer and expedition traveler Hugo Adolf Bernatzik, is a timber merchant from Lubljana who has retired to small farm. In his grandfather's house, Kurt Kocherscheidt spends his early childhood and primary-school years. 1946 The marriage of Elisabeth Mayer and Friedrich Kocherscheidt is divorced. 1953-61 Kurt goes to high-school ("Realgymnasium") in Klagenfurt where he develops an interest for zoology and geography, but also for art history. 1961 Kocherscheidt passes his school-leaving exam ("Matura") in Klagenfurt. In the fall of the same year, he enrolls for Professor Sergio Pauser's Painting Masterclass at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. 1963/64 Following fundamental differences of opinion with his professor, Kocherscheidt goes to Zagreb to continue his art studies at the Akademija Likovnih Umjetnosti with Professors Ivo Rezek and Krsto Hegedusic. 1965 Graduation from the Painting Masterclass at the Vienna Academy. In order to evade military service, Kocherscheidt nevertheless continues his studies at the Academy with the Professors Welz (medallion art), Kortan (restoration), Wotruba (sculpture), and Melcher (graphic art). 1966 Kocherscheidt moves into a studio in 34 Karolinengasse in Vienna and marries the architecture student Angela Feuer. The marriage is divorced four weeks later. 1968 He becomes a co-founder of a short-lived artists' group named "Realities" initiated by the art historian Otto Breicha; the group make their first public appearance with an exhibition shown at the Vienna Secession. It is in this, Kocherscheidt's first exhibition that the established painter Kurt Moldovan becomes aware of him; subsequently, Moldovan not only nominates him for the Theodor Körner Prize (an award for young Austrian artists), but also introduces him to Franz Armin Morat. First personal exhibition at the Heide Hildebrandt Gallery, Klagenfurt. 1969-71 From September 1969 to December 1971, Kurt Kocherscheidt lives and works in London. One of his neighbors at Space Ltd. at St. Catherine's Dock, where he rents a studio in the fall of 1969, is Ian McKeever, with whom he had a life-long friendship among artists. Due to the difficulties people have to pronounce his name, he begins to call himself "Kappa" after the Greek word for K, the initial letter of his first and surname. From 1970 to 1985, all his works are signed with this word. From 1985, Kocherscheidt signs his work with a single initial, "K", only. 1972 Kocherscheidt's father dies from a heart attack. Return to Vienna. 1972/73 In May 1972, Kocherscheidt goes on a nine-month tour through South America, from Fireland to the Caribbean. In particular, he spends some time in the Amazon headwater region, capturing his impressions in a series of landscape drawings and numerous black-and-white photos. 1973 Marriage with the photographer Elfie Semotan. Shortly later, he buys a farmhouse in southern Burgenland (Grieselstein near Jennersdorf), trying his hand as an architect in the expansion and reconfiguration of the house. In May of the same year, he meets the 21-year-old composer Wolfgang Rihm in the house of Franz Armin Morat in Freiburg/Breisgau, Germany; it is the beginning of a fruitful artistic dialogue continued over many years. 1974 His first son, Ivo, is born in Vienna on July 25. 1978 In April, Kocherscheidt suffers a severe heart attack. After months of examinations, a life-threatening genetic metabolic disease is diagnosed. On October 16, a life-saving coronary artery bypass operation is done in Bad Krozingen, south of Freiburg/Breisgau. 1979 From January through April, Kocherscheidt stays with his family at the studios of the Morat Institute in Boissano on the Ligurian coast near Savona; from then onward, he comes back here every year for one or two months. 1981 Trip to California and Mexico. 1982 His second son, August, is born in Vienna on January 7. 1983 Kocherscheidt moves into a studio in Lehárgasse in Vienna's 6th district. 1985 At the end of May, following a second heart attack, another bypass operation is done in Geneva, Switzerland. 1986 In November, the Vienna Museum des 20. Jahrhunderts [Museum of the 20th Century] presents a first-time comprehensive show of his oil paintings; afterwards, the exhibition travels to Graz, Salzburg, Karlsruhe, Germany, and Eindhoven, Netherlands. Shortly before the opening of the show, he creates his first "wood sculpture" ("English Eight"). 1987/88 A new, and much larger studio is built to plans by Kocherscheidt on his estate in Grieselstein. 1989 A third bypass operation is done in Geneva. Although the operation is successful, the treating surgeon makes it clear that in the event of further complications only a heart transplantation can save Kocherscheidt's life. 1991 In summer, Jan Hoet presents a personal exhibition of Kocherscheidt at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst in Gent, Belgium, announcing on the occasion of the exhibition opening that he has nominated Kocherscheidt for the documenta 9 in Kassel, Germany. 1992 At the end of January, Kocherscheidt is dedicated a personal exhibition at the Vienna Secession. On this occasion, a musical composition entitled "Kolchis" that Wolfgang Rihm has written especially for him has its first public performance; another featured event is the presentation of a monographic study of his oeuvre published by the Salzburg-based Residenz Verlag. At the end of April, Kocherscheidt sets up a permanent presentation of his works at the Morat Institute in Freiburg/Bresigau. The opening speech for the inauguration of the Kocherscheidt Room is held by Wolfgang Rihm on May 2. On June 10, Kocherscheidt is present at the opening of the documenta 9 in Kassel, where two of his works are shown. In late October, Kocherscheidt travels to the Greek island of Syros (Cyclades) to set up a six-meter-high wooden sculpture entitled "Gate of the Winds" on the estate of gallery owner Michel Würthle. Shortly after his return on November 4, he has to go to emergency hospital, but is released again after a few days, as his condition seems to have temporarily improved. On November 11, Kocherscheidt does his last painting at the Lehárgasse studio in Vienna. On November 13, he dies from heart failure in the hospital of Wels, Upper Austria, at the age of 49 years. Franz Armin Morat [back]