Hugo Loetscher

Wunderwelt

«Wir haben alles dafür. Ein Museum an Ort und Stelle. Ein echtes Museum. Und echt ist doch eure Hütte. (...) Nur die Löffel müssen wir ersetzen. Die sind aus Plastik. Und das geht nicht. Ein Museum muss stimmen. Unser Museum ist der Blechkultur gewidmet.»

Hugo Loetscher once called himself a «Sweetwater Portuguese». In Lisbon he discovered the very edge of Europe, from here he set sail for the New World. He documented his encounters in Cearà, the North Eastern region of Brasil, in his book «Wonder World» 1979. That region is extremely poor, nevertheless the stranger finds a joy of life and a vitality that amaze him. «In the North East misery has quite some imagination», Loetscher writes, therein lies the wonder that raises his hope.
There is a counterpiece to «Wonder World»: the 1982 Los Angeles book «Autumn in the Big Orange». The two books are intrinsically linked. By contrasting each other, they offer a more precise and sharp view on the two opposite worlds. Here a deprived Brasil where each thing is valuable, for instance tin; there the rich California where all dreams can come true but are worthless. There is a bleak vitality in Cearà, whereas life in Los Angeles seems happily detached. Loetscher’s almost ethnographic studies of two marginal ‹wonder worlds›, read side by side, appear like a dialogue between two totally different cultures. Clearly, the author’s preference lies with the Brasilian wonder world, not least because it still contains mysteries that are not commercialised by the film industry.

(Beat Mazenauer, transl. by Anja Hälg)

Translation of title: Wonderworld

Luchterhand, Darmstadt 1979

ISBN: 3-472-86475-3