Lasst die Puppen tanzen

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The collection of the Museum für Gestaltung includes some 350 equally impressive and touching puppets that embody a wide variety of characters. Turn the Puppets Loose takes an in-depth look at this varied ensemble ranging from circus dancers to court ladies, robber chiefs, and Doktor Faust, and follows the popular figure of Hansjoggel into the world of texts performed in puppet theater. This richly illustrated volume focuses on Sophie Taeuber’s radical figures for König Hirsch, the inspired puppet ensembles designed by Otto Morach, and Alexandra Exter’s avant-garde marionettes in the formal vocabulary of the Russian Constructivists. It also offers portraits of the renowned graphic artist Josef Müller-Brockmann as a stage designer and the established businessman Fred Schneckenburger as the head of his own expressive puppet cabaret. An introductory essay discusses the Zurich puppet tradition surrounding the school director Alfred Altherr as an integral part of the teaching at the Kunstgewerbeschule, today’s Zürcher Hochschule der Künste. The biographies of the featured artists and designers offer astonishing insights.