The works in the exhibition have been selected and arranged with a view to highlighting the important role that spatial concepts play in contemporary and emerging Swiss art. They re-veal the many diverse forms in which the conceptualisation and deconstruction of the artwork are expressed. What began with artists expanding the concept of art and exploring notions of time and space in the early years of the twentieth century is still an ongoing process today. Many contemporary works, especially installations, create spatial situations that are not in-tended to be viewed, in the way that paintings or sculptures are, but directly experienced instead.
Blurred boundaries and passages belong to contemporary art in a twofold sense, for these works do not merely initiate processes that involve experiences of space, but are often themselves the result of visual processes in which the concept of art has been tried and test-ed for its changeability. In so doing, the dissolution of boundaries affects the general concept of artwork as well as the specific aesthetic experience of an individual work and its formative properties.
The exhibition provides a geographically specific narrative within this wider international his-tory of art, addressing the ways in which artists perceive, reflect on and construct both time and space. It shows just how open Switzerland is, as indeed it has been for a very long time, to this dynamic and boundary-defying discourse in the world of art.
An exhibition catalogue by Roman Kurzmeyer and Friedemann Malsch will be published by Hatje Cantz Verlag in mid October 2011. It will include texts by Jacqueline Burckhardt, Hel-mut Federle, Christian Kerez, Thomas Hirschhorn, Mai-Thu Perret, Peter Suter and Adam Szymczyk. In addition, limited art editions by Latifa Echakhch, Bruno Jakob, Vaclav Pozarek, Pamela Rosenkranz and Erik Steinbrecher are available.
Artists included are:
John M Armleder (*1948)
Silvia Bächli (*1956)
Bruno Bertozzi (1945 –2000)
Max Bill (1908 –1994)
Miriam Cahn (*1949)
Valentin Carron (*1977)
Andreas Christen (1936 –2006)
Latifa Echakhch (*1974)
Hans Emmenegger (1866 –1940)
Helmut Federle (*1944)
Fischli/Weiss (David Weiss *1946, Peter Fischli *1952)
Sylvie Fleury (*1961)
Clara Friedrich (1894 –1969)
Alberto Giacometti (1901 –1966)
Camille Graeser (1892 –1980)
Thomas Hirschhorn (*1957)
Karin Hueber (*1977)
Bruno Jakob (*1954)
Emma Kunz (1892 –1963)
Verena Loewensberg (1912 –1986)
Richard Paul Lohse (1902 –1988)
Christian Marclay (*1955)
Mario Merz (1925 –2003)
Karim Noureldin (*1967)
Mai-Thu Perret (*1976)
Vaclav Pozarek (*1940)
René Pulfer (*1949)
Pamela Rosenkranz (*1979)
Dieter Roth (1930 –1998)
Adrian Schiess (*1959)
Shirana Shahbazi (*1974)
Roman Signer (*1938)
Erik Steinbrecher (*1963)
Sophie Taeuber-Arp (1889 –1943)
André Thomkins (1930 –1985)
Niele Toroni (*1937)
Felice Varini (*1952)
Ben Vautier (*1935)
Hannah Villiger (1951 –1997)
Aldo Walker (1938 –2000)
Caspar Wolf (1735 –1783)
Example: Switzerland is a production of Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, curated by Roman Kurzmeyer and Friedemann Malsch.
