From dress-up-dolls to art(-therapy) with dolls/puppets

Hansjürgen Gauda interviewed by Gudrun Gauda

Abstract

Hansjürgen Gauda has been occupied with various forms of dolls as work of art since childhood. The self-understanding of his artistic and (later on) therapeutic work has been shaped by unconventional early experiences with the appeal and sensual-concrete materiality of the dolls’ worlds as well as with their deconstruction. The fascination of moving from the wholistic product to its parts (deconstruction) and from the parts in turn to the creation of wholeness (reconstruction) is the focus of his engagement with dolls. What is art? What is therapy? In the interview, Gudrun Gauda, puppet therapist and wife of the artist, traces this early fascination.