HAGALDOM – GEORGE STEINMANN
PRESS RELEASE
“How wonderfully people progress, it truly makes me want to return to this quirky world a thousand years from now… Good Lord, what leaps forward will have been made in all sciences in a thousand years, considering how far we’ve already come; surely by then, nature repairers will be as common as watch repairers are today.”
(Achte Nachtwache des Bonaventura, 1805)
The title of George Steinmann’s exhibition, “Hagaldom,” expresses his concept of holistic thinking through the geomantic lens. Born in Bern in 1950, Steinmann studied graphics and painting at the Bern School of Applied Arts. From 1978–1980, he attended the Art Institute of San Francisco, focusing on painting, music, and African-American history. Active as a musician since 1966, particularly in the realms of blues and experimental music, Steinmann expanded into visual arts in the late 1970s, launching diverse “aesthetic research projects.”
In Finland, Steinmann worked primarily as a musician for five years during the early 1970s. The concept of holism is integral to his art, which seamlessly merges with his lifestyle. Without hierarchies, his art incorporates natural materials to unite ideas and elements harmoniously.
The core of Steinmann’s art is the relationship between humans and nature in today’s world, specifically the profound crisis of awareness triggered by the collapse of old systems. This crisis—marked by a one-dimensional faith in the tangible, calculable, and measurable—manifests across all aspects of human life. From massive military armament and widespread famine to environmental degradation, misdirected planning, and ecological catastrophes, the symptoms of this crisis have become everyday realities.
The artist confronts this cynicism not with indifference but through engagement. His art exists neither above nor below nature, cities, or communities but within and alongside them. Drawing inspiration from nature’s cycles—such as fossil fuels formed in ancient swamps over millions of years, now consumed rapidly to sustain a technocratic world—Steinmann’s art calls for liberation from the exploitative demands of marketing. Only by escaping this cycle can spiritual energy flourish.
Over the years, Steinmann’s work has led him to diverse landscapes: the meadows and Alps of Central Europe, Lapland’s tundras, Nevada’s deserts, Karelia’s wetlands, San Francisco’s arid regions, and Florida’s mangrove swamps. Traversing these locations, he remains open to new observations and seemingly random encounters. Through his journeys, he has marked nature, documented his experiences, and captured traces of animals, humans, and plants. His approach is consciously subjective and intuitive, seeking to demonstrate, through personal experience, that humans can still find their place within nature.
In conjunction with the exhibition, a publication about the artist has been released through Kurt Salchi Verlag, accompanied by a new record from Steinmann’s trio, TERRITORIES.
This exhibition at the Pori Art Museum is supported by the Swiss cultural foundation PRO HELVETIA.
Publication:
ISBN 951-9355-24-3 George Steinmann: Dokumentoiva julkaisu HAGALDOM -näyttelystä
In Pori Art Museum 8.4.-14.5.1989
Editing: Marketta Seppälä, George Steinmann
Article: Yrjö Haila
Translation: Ritva Päivömaa
Photographs: Porin taidemuseo
Lay-out: George Steinmann
Printing house: Stämpfli + Cie AG, Bern
Translated with ChatGPT