k u r t Z E L T N E R
STORYTELLER - MUSICIAN - PAINTER
Zeltner was born in 1967 in a farming village near Neuchâtel in Switzerland. After school he attended the School of Applied Arts in Biel /Bienne and the School of Design in Bern. Zeltner was never able to get used to the mechanisms of the “artist’s guild” and as a simple country child in the midst of a family steeped in arts and culture, he always remained an outsider. He rebelled against the art establishment, believing that his rural character was the only thing that was true and should be preserved. He closed himself off to many things whose value he only later recognized. This dichotomie - and the associated homelessness - is partly reflected to his works to this day. While he was the “artist” at home, he always remained the “peasant” among artists.
OH YES…. POINTED SHOES…..
They are just as much a part of him as his blue eyes and his roguish grin. Preferely boots. Pointed shoes are his sign of individuality, creativity and spontaneity. One could say that it is symbolic - based on the artist’s observation - that a build-up of pressure is needed to achieve a certain explosiveness when released. It is this unloading that releases the core of the idea. Casual and irrelevant creativity is just more or less the elegant tiptoeing around the core of a subject.
As a classic barefooted kid growing up in the mossy earth of the Bernese Sealand, I have never quite managed to get rid of the black dirt under my fingernails. My knees are also not always black due to praying. No, it’s from weeding the beds. When I was 18, I used my meager apprentice wage to buy my treasured snakeskin-boots for around 400 Swiss Francs (I earned 450 a month). Yes. Disgraceful. And I admit it. Captive bred snakes from Florida. Oh, what the heck! After facing hostility of two thirds of all vegetarians, vegans and WWF-members of the western hemisphere, I withdraw my boots from the public eye and only wore them in my bedroom. This cost me several matresses and relationships but gave me plenty of material for song lyrics. I only recoverd from the shock of my own cowardice five years later, when David Lynch’s “Wild at Heart” hit the big screen. A film in which Nicolas Cage had even fewer muscles but more hair. A film that I saw three times in the same week. The first time in sneakers and then twice in boots. I adapted Sailors statement about his beloved snake-skin jacket to my pointed shoes and it has more or less accompanied me through life since then.
No, they didn’t have a name, my shoes. They have supported me trough a hundred concerts on stage. They have been resoled at least three times and only gave up, when a storm flooded my basement. Not authenticated - but plausible - is the story that they sang the Blues classic “When the levee breaks” during their death struggle in the debris and mud. Personally, I’m not convinced about that.
Facts and Figures
Born 19...um...well...between World War II and the first Gulf War sometime....
Where? In the Bernese Seeland. Gampelen, Bern, to be exact. The first German speaking village on the route Neuchâtel - Bern. Some say also the last. So...the last German-speaking village on the Bern - Neuchâtel line.
If it is true that Friedrich Dürrenmatt had his "Old Lady" "ins"-pired on his train rides from Ins station, I would have gone to secondary school in "Güllen". From there, the next step - entering the School of Design in Biel - was only logical. Logical?
"Soso, Kürtu. Schueu for Gschtautig! ...hmm...u was macht me de da?" so my neighbor, farmer Hansueli, at the sugar beet harvest. "Zeichne," JungKurt in all pride, bravely grabs the next beet. "Draw? The whole day? ...u was teach me de da?" Silence. Another turnip. "Yes, auso ou male...", my attempt at justification. Silence. A rotten turnip. I leave it there. "Zeichne u Male? ...aha...U was wird me de da?" Double silence. Two beets at once. "Jo weisch....ähm... yes, you can make Mügliche a graphic artist, a decorator, a cutter..." Threefold silence. No beet. "lueg, dört hesch ä Rüebe la lyge..." Permanent silence.
So I became a decorator. Like Tinguely...and I think also Helge Schneider...Today, of course, it's called Polydesigner 3D. Back then, one was simply a decorator. Window dresser. Decorador de escaparades. And like all decorators, I learned to do everything and nothing, but to do it quickly and efficiently. Traumatized by the merciless vocational school lessons, I began to consciously and successfully avoid museums, galleries and everything that had to do with art. This unbelievable renunciation allows me today to say that I have reached my artistic deficits by myself and without looking elsewhere! If I should let myself - which I hate to the blood - to behave like an art critic (is criticizing an art?) to put my doing into a drawer, I would have to call the drawer probably Kurt Zeltner. Stylistically between Goofy and Rolf Knie...well I mean...hmm, there is no bandwidth in between at all. Well, you will have understood.
What, well, does this have to do with the music. Well, not much, except:
"Soso, Kürtu. Jazzschueu Luzärn! ...hmm...u was macht me de da?" so my neighbor, farmer Hansueli, at the sugar beet harvest. "Musig", JungKurt in all pride, bravely grabs the next beet. "Musig? Dr ganz Tag? ...u was lehrt me de da?" Silence. Another turnip. "Yes, to sing and so...", my attempt at justification. Silence. A rotten turnip. I leave it there. "Singe? ...aha...U was wird me de da?" Double silence. Two turnips at once. "Jo weisch....ähm... yes, you can make Mügliche a jazz musician, a composer, a rock star..." Threefold silence. No beet. "look, you left a turnip lying around..." Permanent silence.