T he Swiss artist Rolf Sachs has always been something of a chameleon. This polymath’s practice spans a number of disciplines, from photography, sculpture and installation to interiors and set design. On a Zoom call with him, I point out that what comes across, even through the computer monitor, is simply the “joy of creation”. His response? “I am incredibly lucky that I'm just bubbling with ideas.”
Now, a selection of his works from the past two decades will be exhibited in a retrospective Moving Stills, at Sotheby’s New Bond Street between 28 October to 6 November, running alongside the ‘St. Moritz Pops Up in Sotheby’s!’ pop up store which showcases exciting design and art from the Swiss town. Sachs's exhibition spans photography, sculpture and installations from Chip on the Shoulder (1999) chair to the Tenderly series of photographs (2020).
His lineage is illustrious. Born in Switzerland in 1955, eldest son of high-profile industrialist and photographer Gunter Sachs, Rolf recalls his father as a “true aesthete”. But today, when asked what motivates him, Sachs's response is surprising. “I was an only child, and then I spent many long, long years in boarding school. It's something I'm craving for - harmony.”
“I am incredibly lucky that I'm just bubbling with ideas”
This highly personal perspective underscores his life philosophy. “Togetherness is something we have to promote. I think it's a very important theme. I basically say we are all here by pure coincidence, through the genes of our parents or our grandparents; the world in which we are born and when we are born is coincidence.”
Sachs is talking from his treasure chest of a studio in Rome, where he moved in 2018, though his affection for London, where he lived for more than 20 years, is clear. He studied mathematics at the London School of Economics, but now admits that a younger version of himself would have loved to attend a top art school, such as Central St Martins.
It is refreshing to hear his upbeat take on the capital which, in the eyes of many, feels rather depleted post-Brexit. “London is going to stay London. It's going to be the big European cosmopolitan capital and nothing is going to change it,” he says.
His enviable Eurocentric lifestyle encompasses Switzerland, especially St. Moritz, where he converted the Olympic Stadium used in the 1928 and 1948 Winter Olympics into a family residence. This striking pavilion housed rooms for officials and umpires and still has the Olympic flame on its tower.
“The toboggan... is actually quite a sexy shape”
Sachs’s conversation is peppered with references to his Swiss heritage, including a colourful account of his experiences on the Cresta run, the ice toboggan track in St. Moritz. This sporty aesthetic spills over into his work, distilled especially in the sculpture Krug-Cresta 125 Year Sledge (2009) which features in the Sotheby’s show. “The toboggan, or skeleton as it’s called, is actually quite a sexy shape,” he stresses.
Other pieces on show reflect Sachs’s Swiss history such as Rastè (2023), a bronze rake sculpture, as complex as it is simplistic. “It is a beautiful archaic object, but it was essential in the Swiss villages. My mother died very young, so I was brought up by my grandmother. We were mostly in the mountains in Switzerland, not in St. Moritz. We were two valleys down.
“When one had to bring in the hay before the rain, the whole village went out there to help. It was a memorable experience, but we all had blisters! It is something which stays in your psyche and is a beautiful childhood memory. On top, it's such an aesthetic object.”
Meanwhile Wanderlust (2012), a walking stick crafted from chestnut wood, highlights in a witty way the Swiss-German character. “I remember when I was a kid everybody had these sticks and they had all the little badges on it where they went in the Alps and so on. So I changed the badges [for the piece shown at Typisch Deutsch]—I put on Ibiza and Phuket, and all the modern destinations.”
This is design imbued with a degree of humanity, a stance Sachs always espouses. He sums up his approach to art (and life) succinctly on his own website: “Deftly employing humour and wit, his work seeks to elicit emotional, sensory reactions.” He continues: “I try very clearly to detach myself totally from decorative elements, especially in design, as design was mostly a decorative art, hence in French les arts décoratifs. I always said I wanted to do art émotionnel as the concept behind [it] is thought-provoking.”
This attitude does not mean experimentation falls by the wayside. Sachs’s innovations rack up, especially in photography.
His recent Tenderly series (2020) is a case in point, exemplifying his adventures on celluloid. “I basically move the camera so there's always a dynamic feeling behind it and its appearance is somehow coincidental. During lockdown, I had a little photo studio in our house where I did a lot of moving stills. One of the series is Tenderly with the toilet paper. But I photographed spaghetti, cans, objects I found in the house. I probably captured 20 or so [items].”
It is refreshing also to hear the logic behind the movable piece 3 Equal Parts Revised (2008) “If I were a professor and teaching a class on design, I would definitely push something like this and ask the students to search for simplicity as it often reflects purity, which is beautiful.”
Sachs’s schedule is meanwhile naturally brimming over in the next few months with a major museum show in the pipeline. He signs off with a typically liberating maxim: “If we are really free in our head, then we are happy people.”
Rolf Sachs: Moving Stills is on view at Sotheby's New Bond Street, between 28 October - 6 November.
St. Moritz Pops Up At Sotheby's! is at Sotheby's between 28 October - 5 November 2023
