Stream

History of the work

On the east side of the Carl-Ludwig-Lory-Haus, formerly the Lory hospital, stands 'Stream', a chrome-steel sculpture made by Willy Weber in 1972. Like his other 'explosion sculptures', it was made from metal shaped with explosives. The Inselspital's leaflet on the Inselpark mentions the steel artworks as part of the scheme that turned the meadows of the former country estate into an extended landscape park.

1972 was an important year for Weber. He represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale, together with Richard Paul Lohse, and made the chrome-steel sculpture 'See' (Lake) for the university sports hall at Neufeld in Bern. According to SIKART, from 1972 he also made explosion sculptures in Corten steel.

Weber, born in Bern in 1933 and died in Boll-Sinneringen in 1998, was self-taught. SIKART counts him among the Bernese avant-garde of the 1960s promoted by Harald Szeemann at the Kunsthalle; in the mid-1960s he experimented with moving objects driven by magnets or air currents, and with laser light. In August 1976, with Bernhard Luginbühl and Jean Tinguely, he staged the action 'Zorn' (Anger) on Bern's Allmend against tendencies hostile to culture. From 1982 he combined the blasted plates with cast fragments of human bodies. SIKART names Lucio Fontana, Nouveau Réalisme and the Düsseldorf group Zero as points of reference.

The building in front of which the sculpture stands was designed by Otto R. Salvisberg and Otto Brechbühl in 1929/30. The building inventory describes the south side with its continuous, far-projecting balcony slabs as its characteristic feature. A comparison is worthwhile: one year older is Weber's chrome-steel sculpture 'Circuspferde, waren schon immer ein Traum für mich' by the former Tiefenau hospital in the north of the city.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · SIKART: Willy Weber · Wikipedia (de): Willy Weber (Künstler) · Inselspital, Direktion Infrastruktur: Flyer Inselpark (2018) · Bauinventar der Stadt Bern: Freiburgstrasse 41G (Loryspital) · Wikimedia Commons: Chromstahlplastik Stream (Willy Weber 1972)