Felix Hess

Felix Hess
Born	1941 (1941) The Hague, Netherlands
Died	10 October 2022 (aged 81) Haren, Netherlands
Nationality	Dutch
Occupation(s)	artist and physician

Felix Hess (1941 – 10 October 2022) was a Dutch artist with with a background in physics.

Biography

Born in The Hague, Hess studied physics at the University of Groningen from 1959 to 1967. He obtained his PhD cum laude in 1975 for a groundbreaking study into aerodynamics and movement of boomerangs, which until then had only been subject to cultural research.

Between 1975 and 1979, Hess worked as a mathematician at the University of Adelaide in Australia. During that period, Hess was inspired by the communication of bullfrogs. Later he 'translated' his findings into moving, interacting sound devices and made presentations with them in galleries and later also museums. Sound animals he build, like bullfrogs, made sounds and responded to each other, but became silent as soon as they detected other unknown sounds. Hess has built various installations related to nature, interaction, senses and silence.

Hess had an installation art exhibition at the Tschumi Pavilion in Groningen in 1999. He transformed the pavilion into a large interactive lantern that reacted to air fluctuations. In 2018, Hess repeated this, but now filled the pavilion with 4000 teddy bears.

Hess won the Witteveen+Bos-prijs voor Kunst+Techniek for his works in 2003. The jury described Hess as an artist who "reopens our senses and makes us stand still in wonder". In March 2022, Hess received a certificate and medal from the Czech Minister of Culture for his donation to the National Gallery Prague of his collection of Japanese Zen paintings.

Hess died in Haren, his residence, on 10 October 2022, aged 81.