Zürcher Totentanz

During the lockdown weeks after Easter 2020, anyone walking through the largely deserted Zurich could make a new discovery almost every day: dancing skeletons on building walls and fences – sprayed by Harald Naegeli. One peeked out from behind Rodin's "Gates of Hell" at the Kunsthaus, another swung its sickle at the base of the Waldmann monument, one guarded the properly empty restaurant table at Schifflände, and even at the entrance of the cantonal hospital, a grim reaper awaited visitors. In total, there were around fifty drawings, but most existed only briefly – often washed away, erased, or destroyed within 24 hours – as if the thought of death could not be endured. It all began many years earlier: first with the "Cologne Dance of Death" from 1980/81, and then in 2004 with a request for an official project in Naegeli's hometown of Zurich. At that time, he approached the Grossmünster with the wish to draw a Dance of Death in the stairwell of the church towers. There was a vote in the community, negotiations with the canton took place, and 14 years of bureaucratic back and forth passed before Naegeli was granted permission to spray certain locations – with the stipulation that the drawings be removed after four years. In the fall of 2019, Naegeli created the first two figures, and as the genius of freedom guided his hand, he unexpectedly went a few centimeters beyond the allowed area. The project was suspended, but Naegeli decided not to let his art be commanded. So, like forty years before, he again roamed Zurich at night as a sprayer. Strangely, the reactions were sometimes as if time had stood still: there they were again – the resentments that saw only defacement in Naegeli's images, the rigid sense of order that could not bear to be exposed and outsmarted by art. Many, however, reacted differently, appreciating the ephemeral nature of the works.