Chuck Sperry

Guenther Dobrauz, organized Röchaholics II, a great gathering of some of the world’s best Rock Poster artists and photographers. Guy Burwell, Lindsey Kuhn, Ron Donovan, Malleus, Chris Hopewell, Blackyard, Michael Hacker, Fabien Von Unweth and I took residence at the Rosenmatt Villa (pictured above) to throw down some rock visuals and have a great opening. I was met at the Zurich train station by Lindsey and Guenther who took me directly to meet the other artists; we were shown around the premises of Heinrich Mantel AG, maker of the finest anodized aluminum in Europe, and large format, highest quality, silkscreen printer. Here’s some shots of us in the Mantel’s amazingly appointed print studio. It was explained how our editions of anodized aluminum would be digitally printed by this devise below – ink would be layered over and over in a very time-consuming process where the image is scribed 7 times – over and over – to drive the image deeply into the carefully prepared aluminum substrate. In exact, precise alignment each print in the edition is entirely scribed over and over to add richness and detail.

Then the aluminum, with the image deeply imbedded into it, is heated in a finely controlled process to bond it into the metal and seal it over with an anodized layer of bonded oxygen molecules. You can see the gang here in front of the heating chamber.

Then Guenther and the whole crew at Mantel made us a warm, hospitable fondu at the print studio. Good to taste fondu and smell the familiar smells of the print shop all at the same time. Really outstanding, so good!

Back to the Rosenmatt to set up. Here’s Lindsey Kuhn, Chris & Jo Hopewell, and Mr. Mantel on the pitch.

And no Hooligans – that goes for you!

There are great shots from the actual Röckaholics II show here – One final pair of shots – dawn in Zurich – as I took a few hours to walk around and ponder. Listening to something very good on my headphones, I was surprised to watch a woman exit from the front door of her house near a bridge demurely wearing a beach towel, slip nude at dawn into the freezing river that rushes out of the lake right in the heart of beautiful old Zurich, and swim with the swans flanking her on either side. It was about the most graceful thing I ever saw.