With a spray can against the disregard of living environments

"in view of the corruption of political processes, all that remains is to reflect on art, but art not or no longer as an object of meditation, as an escape from reality into a 'more beautiful world', but as a weapon," wrote Harald Naegeli in 1979 in "mein sprayen. mein revoltieren".

He used his spray can to denounce the inhospitality of cities, the concreting over of natural habitats and the disregard for animals and plants. This was the case in Zurich in the 1970s, later in his exile in Germany and since 2020, after he returned to Switzerland, once again in Zurich: black spray-painted stick figures on facades, peering around the corners of buildings, dancing in underground car parks or standing on people's feet on bare sidewalks. Naegeli continues his line from the wall to the floor or ceiling.

Six months in prison

In the 1970s, the Zurich authorities put a price on his head and over a hundred charges were filed against him. And he sprayed his black stick figures on public and private walls at night. Until he was caught in the summer of 1979. He was sentenced to nine months in prison and a heavy fine for damage to property. Fleeing to Germany was of no use to him. The highest court there had him extradited to Switzerland in 1984. This was followed by six months in the Wauwilermoos prison. After his release, he moved to Düsseldorf. He returned to Switzerland in 2020. That's one side of his life.

The other, lesser-known side is his graphic work. Sketchbooks filled over decades, drawings, watercolors, collages and hundreds of so-called "Urwolke" sheets, which look like clouds of dust from a distance. To this day, the artist continues to add a fine, quiet line to these.

Last summer, the book "Den Vogelflug, die Wolkenbewegung misst man auch nicht mit dem Zollstock misst! The Sprayer of Zurich, Texts and Conversations 1979-2022" was published. In it, NZZ journalist Urs Bühler and Anna-Barbara Neumann, Managing Director of the Neageli Foundation, contrast the extroverted sprayer with the introverted poet. The book they have edited uses text and images to show how the striking line figures of public space have grown out of this much more complex, poetic background.

Art Prize of the City of Zurich

Harald Naegeli, the son of a Norwegian painter and a doctor and parapsychologist from Zurich, was influenced by the Dada movement in his early years. He began his training at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts, spent a year in Paris in 1964 and studied drawings by painters such as Rembrandt and Antonio Pisanello. Back in Zurich at the School of Arts and Crafts, he became fascinated by the medium of collage. He was influenced by Dadaists such as Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters and Mondrian, as well as the expressionist painter Wassily Kandinsky.

Naegeli is now 85 years old. His attitude has hardly changed in all his creative years, as the illustrated textbook by Bühler and Neumann shows from his own statements. After he returned to Zurich in March 2020, his black spray-painted stick figures reappeared on Zurich's facades. The Kunsthaus Zürich and the canton filed criminal charges. The city awarded him the City of Zurich Art Prize.

For animal welfare

In an interview, he was asked whether the art prize had reconciled him with his home city. "No," was the answer, "there is no reconciliation. It doesn't need that, it needs opposition. Disfigurement through architecture is a crime that should not be reconciled with."

Naegeli himself established the Harald Naegeli Foundation in summer 2021. Its purpose is to preserve his work and make it accessible to the public. After his death, his extensive oeuvre will be sold, with the proceeds going to animal welfare, Naegeli decreed shortly before his 85th birthday.