Texto | Guillermo Deisler

About the author

Guillermo Deisler (Santiago of Chile, 1940 – Halle, Germany 1995) engraver, illustrator, designer, visual poet, visual artist, and editor across artisanal prints.

Between 1958 and 1960, he studied in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Chile, where he specialized in ceramic and engraving techniques. Additionally, he conducted studies in theatrical design, scenography, and illumination in the Escuela Nocturna de Teatro (Night School of Theater) from the same house of studies. He was a student of José Caracci and Claudio Tarragó in sculpture.
Between 1967 and 1973 he served as a professor of the Department of Plastic Arts at the University of Antofagasta, Chile.

In addition, he was a poet, writer, author of the book GRRR and of works of visual poetry. In 1963 he founded Ediciones Mimbre (Wicker Editions), where he published more than fifty titles of young poets and writers using a manual press and woodcut illustrations. His creative interest was centered in latin american poetic experiences that are grouped below the name of “new poetry,” establishing contacts and exchanges with his authors through Mail Art.

After being detained in Antofagasta in 1973 for his political ideas, he went into exile in France and Bulgaria.

Between 1970 and 1993 he actively participated in the artistic movement Arte-Correo (Mail Art).
Between 1986 and 1995 he lived in Halle, Germany, where he worked as a set designer and graphic artist of the Opera theater of this city, the place where he later passed away from a major illness.

In 1987 he began the international project of Arte Correo UNI/ vers, a folder of visual and experimental poetry. 40 artists participated in each folder copy with a printing of 100 issues. They created 35 issues that were acquired by the Library of Sajonia, Dresden, Germany; National Schiller Museum Marbach, Germany; Herzog August Library of Wolfennbuttel, Germany; State University Library, Frankfurt /Main, Germany, Museum of Modern Art in New York, George Pompidou Center and National Library of Paris, Mediathéque Ecole des Beaux Arts of the Ville of Paris.