Balthasar Burkhard

Born in 1944 in Berne, Switzerland. He lived and worked in Berne. Burkhard died in 2010. After his apprenticeship with Kurt Blum from 1961-1964, Balthasar Burkhard started working as a photographer. He documented the exhibitions curated by Harald Szeemann at the Kunsthalle Berne and began exploring art more intensely through his photography after a respective suggestion by Szeemann. In 1977, Burkhard presented his works for the first time in a solo exhibition at Zolla Lieberman Gallery in Chicago. He had his first solo museum exhibitions after his return to Switzerland: at the Centre d’ Art Contemporain in Geneva (1980) as well as at the Kunsthalle Basel (1983). His work had been influenced by many years abroad and multiple trips in which he explored depictions of urban and natural landscapes as well as representations of fauna and flora. Burkhard was not interested in showing a single portrait of a city or a particular place in his work rather than the natural and civilizing phenomenon itself. In doing so, he approaches his subject without judging, without political or philosophical implications, but with a realist and objective point of view. Furthermore, Balthasar Burkhard’s new and innovative approach to the enlarged print was decades ahead of his time. Scent of Desire was the name of the last exhibition by Balthasar Burkhard, which was shown at the Museum im Bellpark in Kriens in 2010. Shortly afterwards, on April 16th 2010, the artist died in Berne.