– Heinz Hugel –

Heinz Hugel: „The Last Tree“ – – – Found piece of wood on hardboard, 50 cm x 60 cm, painted with blackboard-color – – – 2000, Bremen (Germany)
The Last Tree…
The work “The Last Tree” of Heinz Hugel (HH) is determined by an object stuck on hardboard painted black of the size 50 cm x 60 cm. This, what it is, cannot be identified immediately at all! Alone the title of this work refers to wood of a tree…
Something like a stripe which is determined of graphic structures goes up in the middle of this wood object from below. These structures go into horizontal and vertical direction with filigree lines which are standing out from brown areas breaking through irregularly in their lighter color in different direction and shape. Those are these brown places breaking through which most likely remind of wood…
There then are vertical structures still running there parallel to each other in dark gray on this central reservation above on the right.
It can be anticipated that this change must have been caused by a slow and steady influence to the living wood. That is a change which discloses this how such a stable structure must have interwoven itself times ago with determined growth fiber by fiber! It is the life-will itself achieving – millimeters by millimeters – the prototype of one’s own (according to one’s inner “program”) and with that helping to get this one to a real existence. The “inner program” absolutely is able to provide an existence with powerful size and stately height!
All this surrenders the segment, the central reservation, going vertically.
On the right and on the left of it another segment follows respectively on. But the remained traces speak a completely different language! There had happened intense injuries there which had torn off parts from the remaining rests of the outer segments. The frayed remains allow this assumption.…
A tree had been destroyed! But we know nothing about how it happened, or why…
This, what this tree-remains tells Heinz Hugel had expressed with the title “The Last Tree”.
Many an observer of that time (2000) may have regarded such a statement as exaggerated. Nowadays, 15 years later, the danger has certainly got more obvious for the existence of ancient trees. Simultaneously, there are today but also broad endeavors, with the aim to help nature to get its right again…
But there is somebody to whom it has (or had) become reality finding no more trees. – This statement came to me in my mind in regard on the origin of the wood:
Certainly today, I see in front of me my husband returning back to the gallery pro art while fetching from his bag something wet and dripping to show it to me. It had been this strange piece of wood, this “tree remains”, absorbed by water being dripping wet, which he had got out there. He had found this water-object behind the Neustadt’s Station on a track section having no longer been used. It had been located in a track-bed filled with puddle-water there. (The gallery pro art could use the former station buildings of this Bremen district at that time.)
HH then had made preparations so that his find could dry at leisure. And I also had resumed my own work. After almost two weeks he then had put this “wood-document” into scene: The deep, but mat black of the surroundings lets the fine structures, “leached out”, glitter in light white and almost silvery when being lit. And the grown structures described above become fine graphic set tongues so. These strengthen the contrast between the slowly grown and the painful injuries of one single moment!
Only while I was preparing my interpretations, it fell for me like dandruff of the eyes:
This something being dripping wet came directly from the world of the beaver!
Exactly, it is the beaver which found, or still finds, no more a living-space in many places. There are, or were, no more riverbanks with tree vegetation! “The last tree” – for the beaver at all events – has or had become reality… – – – Interpretation: Renate Hugel
Short Biography:

heinz hugel
1936: Heinz Hugel was born in Bremen.
1976, since: Activity in the artistic area, among others in the adult education
1981, from: Freelance artist
1982: Foundation of a gallery
1990: Joining the artist group “Der Bogen”
1992: Founder member of the group “Quintum” (union of international artists)
2000: Symposium “Encounter of Native American Artists and Artists from Germany (one artist from Bulgaria)” (con-organization)
2001: Study visit to Oklahoma/the USA (“return visit”),
Expansion of the group “Quintum” into “Quintum international”
2002: Certificate of the university Bremen – studies with Professor Uwe Mempel, main emphasis in “Art Practice” – “Experimental Ceramic”
2007: Member of the group “Art in the Province”
2009: Member of the group “Art – Projekt”
2013, from: Retreat because of physical problems
Exhibitions or Exhibition Participations: (Choice)
Bremen, Borgholzhausen, Herford, Hamburg, Kiel, Kleestadt, Großumstadt, Langenargen (Lake Constance), Loidved (Denmark), Munich, New York, (USA), Oklahoma (USA), Rose State College (Oklahoma City, USA), Tribes Gallery (Norman, USA), Heaven, “International Exhibition” of German and Anadarko Basin Artists (Gracemont, USA), Siklos (Hungary), Tekomatorp (Sweden), Tournus (France), Zwolle (Netherlands)
Several Exhibitions in Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony, Germany): Bassum, Bruchhausen – Vilsen: Klostermühle Heiligenberg (Cloister Mill Saint Mountain), Delmenhorst, Diepholz, Kirchdorf, Lemwerder, Oldendorf, Osterholz Scharmbeck, Rotenburg, Wümme, Schneesen, Sulingen, Syke, Wagenfeld, Weertzen, Weyhe, Wildeshausen, Worpswede – – – Heinz Hugel
Remark 1: Current stand: To Heinz Hugel I have written under “Art Touches Art” the contributions “Art Touches Art – 7”, “Art Touches Art – 15” and “Art Touches Art – 21”. In addition, there is a mention under “Art Touches Art – 16” (the contribution to the teamwork “block-pictures”).
Remark 2: The contributions under „Art Touches Art“ refer to the symposium „Attempt of an Encounter – Five Native American Artists meet five European Artists“. This had taken place in Bremen (Germany), in the year 2000. Whoever would like to ask about the genesis of the symposium can scroll back till „Art Touches Art – 1“, then continue scrolling back till Information about ‚Art Touches Art‘; after that you find then the „Chronology of the Past History“. – – – Renate Hugel