Christoph Hänsli. Der Gernerator. Gallery Judin, Berlin. Jan 2019.

Press Release: Banal they may well seem, these every­day motifs trans­posed into paint­ingsalways on a scale of 1:1—by the Swiss artist Christoph Hänsli, and yet the con­text to which he draws our atten­tion with this painterly conver­sion is con­sis­tently profound. After explor­ing the under­takings of human beings in their attempt to give life a mean­ing, Hänsli, in recent years, has turned his atten­tion to our con­stant efforts to defy our vuln­er­a­bil­ity and help­less­ness.

The artist ini­tiated these enquir­ies with two large-scale projects. In 2015 he began work on Der Gen­er­ator (The Gen­er­ator), draw­ing us into the heart of the Saint-Gotthard Mas­sif where the Swiss artillery built a sprawl­ing fortress dur­ing World War II. Hänsli produced a life-size depic­tion of the con­trol panel that oper­ated the fortress’ energy sup­ply. Almost eight meters long, Der Gen­er­ator fea­tures an entire arsenal of switches, reg­u­lators and lamps. They symbol­ize both the man­age­able con­trol that can be gained through technol­ogy and the poten­tial for a total loss of command—thus making this paint­ing a dou­ble-por­trait of confi­dence and fear.

The inspi­ra­tion for Hänsli’s next big project, Deponie (Dis­posal site, 2015—16) was equally sub­terra­ne­ous. His quest for sys­tems of order led the artist to the landfill at Herfa-Neu­rode in the Ger­man state of Hesse, the world’s largest under­ground repos­itory of haz­ardous waste. In addi­tion to over two million met­ric tons of dis­charge con­tain­ing mer­cury or arsenic, a “sample room” dis­plays hundreds of tiny amounts of poi­so­nous chem­icals from all over the world—in inno­cent looking and neatly labeled glass jars that closely resem­ble the ones we use for our kitchen spices. Hänsli has trans­posed 33 of these samples into small paint­ings, tidily arranged by cat­egories of pol­lutant. They pre­sent them­selves as a lit­tle per­i­odic table in pas­tel col­ors of the side prod­ucts of civ­i­liza­tion we pre­fer to for­get.

The fol­low­ing year, Hänsli con­signed a se­ries of six medicine cab­i­nets to canvas and gave them the telltale title Fes­tun­gen (Fortresses, 2017). Many of the labels are illeg­i­ble and the lit­tle boxes and con­tain­ers dis­solve into an abs­tract grid. What the Fes­tun­gen really con­ceal thus remains diffuse: the pills for head­aches and hay fever can hardly be dis­tin­guished from the drugs for depres­sion and can­cer. Their very exis­tence implies secu­rity and sat­isfies our need to be pro­tected. Whether intended by the artist or not, each of these med­ical chests is also a highly inti­mate, if some­what blurred, por­trait of its owner.

Hänsli’s inquiry into our mul­ti­faceted and at times absurd desire for safety is expanded by 100 paint­ings of lit­tle screws, most of them rusty and twisted, picked up by the artist on the streets of his home town Zurich or dur­ing trips to New York, Berlin, Milan, and else­where (Ver­loren, Lost, 2013—14). It was not just the eas­ily over­looked beauty of these lit­tle objects that fas­cinated him. It was above all the idea that every sin­gle one of these screws, how­ever tiny, once performed a func­tion, and that its absence from this important place poses a latent secu­rity risk.

The most recent work in the exhi­bi­tion con­cludes Hänsli’s research into our defense mech­a­nisms and adds a striking splash of color. Bald (Soon, 2018) shows a signal red but­ton intrigu­ing in its ambiva­lence. The but­ton might equally trig­ger a destruc­tive action or a life-sav­ing measure. As so often, interpreta­tion is left to the viewer—Hänsli simply jogs our thoughts with his painterly preci­sion and sub­tle humor.

Galerie Judin.

David Smith: Form in Colour. Hauser and Wirth, Zürich.

Vernissage. June 11, 2016

Press Release: Hauser & Wirth Zürich is delighted to present a solo exhibition of works by the late American sculptor, painter and draughtsman, David Smith (1906 – 1965). A titan of 20th-century art, Smith transformed the innovations of European modernism into a richly diverse new artistic language. Over a 33-year career he greatly expanded the notion of what sculpture could be, its relationship to space and importantly moved the site of its production, and ultimately our experience of it, from the artist’s atelier and art foundry into the realms of industry and nature. Spanning pure abstraction and poetic figuration, Smith’s deeply humanist vision has inspired generations of sculptors for over 50 years since his death.
This exhibition marks the gallery’s first presentation of the artist since beginning work with the estate in 2015, and focuses on Smith’s practice between 1958 and 1964, the important final years of his life. The late 1950s marked a dramatic expansion of his ambition and productivity and by the 1960s Smith was at the height of his creative powers, garnering international attention as the leading sculptor of his generation. Exploring the dialogue between Smith’s use of form and colour, geometry and gesture, the show brings together a selection of painted steel sculptures and spray-paint works, highlighting Smith’s objective to merge the concerns of two- and three-dimensional media.
Painting and drawing remained integral to Smith’s creative output throughout his career. ‘Drawings’, he claimed, ‘are studies for sculpture, sometimes what sculpture is, sometimes what sculpture never can be’. Around 1958, almost immediately after the invention of the aerosol spray can, Smith began his Sprays. Made simultaneously to some of his most rigorously geometric sculpture, the Sprays are often loosely gestural. Though the Sprays freed Smith’s form from the constraints of gravity, and his sculpture, for Smith the two mediums were conceptually continuous. The exhibition’s inclusion of both sculpture and painting enriches the viewer’s understanding of Smith’s oeuvre, emphasising his conviction that every facet of his visual output represents an essential element of his total artistic vision.
With the Sprays, Smith adopted a medium that was developed from, and was perfectly aligned with, his sculptural process. When creating a sculpture, Smith would often place components of the work in progress on his white painted floor before joining them together. The welding often scorched the paint surface leaving negative images of the sculpture. Inspired by these incidental patterns, Smith began work on the Sprays, employing any material at hand, from nuts and bolts to tree branches, and even leftovers from his table, which he arranged on paper or canvas before spraying over the composition with industrial enamel paint. When the objects were removed, ghostly silhouettes remained, their outlines hazy from the diffused paint that seeped beneath the objects’ edges. The Sprays encapsulate the overlap between two- and three-dimensional activities in Smith’s practice. As in the artist’s sculptures, the Sprays present an interplay of simple, bold forms to produce complex rhythms in space. They examine the ambiguity between positive and negative space, contrasting layers of effervescent colour with a vacuum of pure white. Exercising spontaneity absent from sculpture, the Sprays represent a direct and unmediated form of expression that, for Smith, provided more than simple studies for his sculptural work.
Appearing contemporary and ever-relevant today, Smith’s sculptures were seen as an extremely radical challenge to modernist taste at the time they were made. The sculptures featured in the exhibition illustrate Smith’s increasing focus on the visual nature of three-dimensional work, and its potential as a painterly medium. In ‘Dida’s Circle on a Fungus’ (1961) and ‘Ninety Father’ (1961), the contrast between loosely painted surface – textural marks made by Smith with industrial enamels and small brushes which are often compared to the spontaneous brushwork of Abstract Expressionists – and assertive geometric forms, creates a lyrical balance. Far beyond cosmetic application, Smith’s use of colour controls the form, the dappled finish working to soften the strict, geometric lines.
‘Circles Intercepted’ (1961) is in many respects a three-dimensional painting. Smith’s dramatically different treatment of colour and form on the two ‘sides’ of the sculpture exemplifies his most radical contribution to the language of sculpture – that is the virtual impossibility for the viewer to ‘possess’ the totality of the object as he / she experiences it from different views. When seen from the front, other views of the sculpture can never be predicted. The viewer is forced to experience the sculpture as a series of unique images in real time, rather than viewing it, and then ‘producing’ its wholeness in one’s own imagination. The work has a muscular authority, and is a tour-de-force in which very heavy plates of steel are suspended in mid-air before our eyes. In addition, the handmade quality and irregularities of the circular forms assert the physical reality of the layered concentric discs as they are pushed and pulled in space – intercepted – by the bars radiating through them. It is all the more noteworthy in this context how Smith used the application of paint to alter the specific weights and forms of the sculpture, and to ultimately prioritise the visual over the physical.
Painted sculpture, in and of itself, was not new – although it was unorthodox at a time when ‘truth to materials’ was the standard, accepted practice for sculpture. As Smith noted, sculpture had been painted from its earliest history. Smith however, introduced a distinctly modern conceptual intention, one that, like his Sprays, takes on vision itself as a subject; Smith was not making painted sculpture, he was making sculpture about painting.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully–illustrated catalogue featuring historic archival images and an essay by curator and art historian Michelle White.

 JUNE 12 - 18 SEPTEMBER

HAUSER & WIRTH

Marcel Gähler - Galerie Römerapotheke, Zürich.

New works on paper by Swiss artist Marcel Gähler. 

Part of The Zürich Galleries Contemporary Art Weekend.

From website: Suburban landscapes, remote corners, unspectacular but mystic gardens, microcosms of the everyday unusualities, kids on vacation - his drawings are small but spectacular views into dreamlike realities. Intriguingly grand art works. This time we will see the already familiar pencil drawings alongside recent watercolour works. The contrast between the two techniques arises new perspectives and will offer a spectacular view on the oeuvre of Marcel Gähler who has been working with the gallery for almost 10 years.

 11th of June to 16th of July 2016

Opening hours: We, Th, Fr 2 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. Sa 12 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Galerie Römerapotheke

Vanessa Billy. All is Porous. Bolte Lang - Zürich. June, 8th 2016.

Press Release:-
all is porous - Vanessa Billy
9th June – 13th August 2016
Informed by reflections on the way we humans treat and interact with our environment, Vanessa Billy’s new body of work looks at the consequences even the most insignificant actions might have. The gallery’s second exhibition in its refurbished space is in part the result of Billy’s engagement with alchemical processes where trial and error define the final outcome and new materials are tested and exploited to serve the artist’s purpose.
Vanessa Billy’ s strong fascination with energy was at the center of her last BolteLang exhibition Clean Cold Fire (2013) where works such as Smells like electricity (rampant) (2013) gave the invisible power that all our lives depend on a shape by connecting it to its results.
In all is porous her subject of investigation is much more the energy that evades. What happens to all that energy created by us going about our lives – when we take a train, send data, cook, make a phone call, make babies? What are the by-products and side-effects that we do not consciously account for?
Where for her previous exhibition at BolteLang sculpted and cast lemons came to symbolise energy (Refresh Refresh (2013)) for all is porous, Billy has turned her attention to their rind, more specifically the fact that under a microscope the pitted and pocked skin of a lemon resembles our own in both its literal and metaphorical permeability. She scrutinises this porosity or permeability again and again with a series of works executed in bronze, bio-resin, and food grade silicon – circling the paradox that the skin is that which joins us and separates us from the world.

Vanessa Billy was born 1978 in Geneva, Switzerland and lives and works in Zurich.
Recent and upcoming exhibitions include:
solo: Kunsthalle St. Gallen (2016, upcoming); Where is Wild?, c-o-m-p-o-s-i-t-e, Brussels; Stranded, Limoncello, London (both 2015); Sustain, Sustain, Collective Gallery Edinburgh (2014); Dear Energy, Sommer & Kohl, Berlin; Vider la terre pour remplir le ciel, Piano Nobile, Geneva (both 2013).
group: Project 1049, LUMA Foundation, Gstaad (forthcoming); Demain dans la bataille, pense à moi, Institut d’Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne; WAR II, Mostyn, Llandudno; Waterbound, Kallmann Museum, Ismaning (all 2015)

BolteLang

Francis Picabia Retrospective. Kunsthaus Zurich. June 2, 2016

3 June – 25 September 2016
Press Release: This ground-breaking exhibition is part of events to mark the 100th anniversary of the Dada movement, which came into being in Zurich. The retrospective explores the historical sweep of Picabia’s (1879 –1953) provocative career – from his early successes as an Impressionist painter and his essential contribution to Dada, via his controversial pin-up girls and through to his abstract works created after the Second World War. Picabia remains a hotly debated figure among the great artists of the 20th century, owing to his distinctive eclecticism and persistent, deliberate contradictions. Throughout his life, he reflected on the operation of style, subverted categorizations and set his face against systems of value judgment that distinguished high art from kitsch and conservatism from radicalism, and this in a self-critical manner and with acerbic humour. For all the demystification of painting that underpinned his Dada activities, Picabia continued to paint frenetically until his death while at the same time constantly reinventing the technique. While the works from Picabia’s Dada years are well known, his oeuvre as a whole and his propensity for working in a wide variety of painting styles still await more in-depth examination.
Taken as a whole this comprehensive exhibition, which opens the Festspiele Zürich 2016, shows the extent to which Picabia’s work questions the principles of the modern. It comprises some 200 works, including around 150 paintings, complemented by a meticulously compiled selection of works on paper, avant-garde magazines for which he wrote or which he published himself, and examples of his film and theatre production.
The exhibition is a collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art, New York, where it will be on display from November 2016.

KUNSTHAUS ZÜRICH