Biography

Born and raised in Zürich in 1943. Apprenticeship as an architectural draughtsman, followed by work in an architecture office in Paris. Back in Switzerland he attended grammar school. During this time a request came to help with a puppet theatre piece — he wrote the play and built the figures himself, performed it, and it became a great success. Nine more productions followed over the years, always with his own text, his own figures and stage sets, and always spoken live.

In 1966 he set out as an independent puppeteer while at the same time renovating the farmhouse he had acquired in Altikon. In 1968 he married the pianist Annemarie Bühler, and soon two children joined the family.

Martin Spühler was a restless, searching person. He wanted, above all, to work with stone. In 1974 the family moved to Ticino for several months; within a year enough works had emerged for an exhibition. For financial reasons it remained the only period of his life dedicated to working in stone.

He continued to tour Switzerland with his theatre productions. Several children's plays followed, often with social undertones. The piece for youth and adults „D'Baumlüüt“ became a great success. His last production was the surrealist „Der Flussläufer“, later developed with the pianist John Wolf Brennan into „Adrift“. The intricate figures made from driftwood from the Maggia are among the very few that have been preserved — they were given to the Musée de la Marionnette in Fribourg.

In Basel he met the percussionist Barni Palm, who played on a self-built metal instrument. The sound fascinated Martin so deeply that it never let him go. As early as 1976 the first sound objects in metal emerged.

Until his first sound-object exhibition in Biel in 1985, he again converted a farmhouse — in Ricketwil, where he lived and worked until his death. He collaborated on dance projects with masks and props, and in 1979 founded the Theater am Gleis in Winterthur, which he ran until 1985.

From this point on his artistic work was devoted to metal — above all to the sound objects he had developed. Together with musicians and composers, a fertile artistic phase unfolded over decades. Countless installations and concerts followed in Switzerland and abroad, especially in Germany.

In the last two years of his life, together with the filmmaker Arthur Spirk, a film about these 30 years of work with sound was created.