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Josephsohn

29 Aug – 31 Oct 2015, Hauser & Wirth Zürich

Opening: Friday 28 August 6 – 8 pm
Followed by the Season Opening Summer Party

Hauser & Wirth is proud to unveil a focused presentation of the large, abstract half-figure sculptures from the late career of Swiss artist, Josephsohn (1920 – 2012). Featuring five of these over-life-size brass sculptures alongside a substantial relief, this exhibition conveys Josephsohn’s deep reverence for ancient motifs brought to fruition in contemporary application. The gallery’s first Josephsohn show in Switzerland since his death, this exhibition displays the artist’s mastery in balancing volume and mass in his timeless sculptures.

The exhibition’s six voluminous sculptures imbue the sparse gallery space with a calm and timeless presence. Selected from the late period of Josephsohn’s 60 year-long artistic career, the works from 1990 to 2004 typify the artist’s remodelling of the ancient concept of the bust, representing the head and part of the torso of the subject. The monoliths initially appear as roughly hewn abstractions, evoking natural geologic formations, yet, they are wholly inspired by reality. One earlier example on display, ‘Untitled’ from 1979, shows the use of the half figure in more recognisable form. The artist’s last wife is seen with a stoic calm expression with her hands clasped in front of her torso. The later abstractions too, when closely examined reveal the suggestion of human features.

With all of his half figure sculptures, Josephsohn worked with live models, sculpting women with whom he had a close relationship, such as his wife, his son’s wife and other close acquaintances. The abstractions, although not strictly portraits, foreground Josephsohn’s important practice of working from life. Even in abstraction, the artist began with the model and sought to capture the presence and distinctiveness of the individual.

While the surfaces of his brass sculptures are rich with detail, Josephsohn’s primary concern with his sculptures was the balance of mass and volume. All of the artist’s initial modelling was done in an inexpensive construction plaster, a material that allowed him the freedom to both add and remove from his creation. With his bare hands or using a spatula, Josephsohn slathered and spread the malleable material onto his plaster models. Even after the material had dried, he could cut off pieces with a knife or an axe to achieve the desired formal composition. The surface can thus be read as a dynamic index of the artist’s creative process. And while plaster’s workability was central to his practice, Josephsohn always envisioned his final artworks to be cast in brass, embodying a rich materiality and modulated patina.

A counterpoint in the exhibition, the untitled relief from 2000, offers further insight into Josephsohn’s practice. Drawing inspiration from Medieval tradition as well as the art of the Greeks and Egyptians, Josephsohn made reliefs throughout his career, favouring it over traditional sculpture for its freedom of composition. In reliefs, the artist could combine figures and explore the relationship of the body within an architectural context. In the relief presented here, a rigid architectural element supports the figure from the bottom and a weighty architrave rests on top. The figure itself with one leg suspended over the other occupies an ambiguous space, the pose more akin to Josephsohn’s reclining figures. The whole can be taken as an exploration of the relationship of the human body in an architectural space. The current exhibition thus gives space to the imposing but charged sculptures to quietly reveal the highly personal artistic language of the late Josephsohn. His bold, immediate and highly physical way of working gave life to an oeuvre with a distinctive weight, mass and force, one that continues to have a strong resonance.

About the Artist

Born in 1920 in Kaliningrad, East Prussia, Josephsohn travelled to Florence in 1938, where he briefly studied sculpture at the Academy of Art. Following the implementation of Fascist laws in Italy in 1939, Josephsohn emigrated to Switzerland, where he began an apprenticeship in the atelier of sculptor Otto Müller. After his apprenticeship, Josephsohn established his own studio in Zurich, where he lived and worked until he passed away in August 2012.

Josephsohn’s major exhibitions include solo presentations at Kunstparterre, Munich, Germany (2015); Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, England (2013); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, England (2013); Lismore Castle Arts, Lismore, Ireland (2012); the 13th International Architecture Exhibition, ‘Common Ground’, Arsenale, Venice, Italy (2012); group exhibition ‘Visible Invisible: Against the Security of the Real’, Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London, England (2010); and retrospectives at the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany (2008), and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2002). Josephsohn was also prominently featured as part of the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013. There are two permanent installations of Josephsohn’s work open to the public: Kesselhaus Josephsohn, an exhibition and gallery space in St. Gallen, Switzerland and home of the estate of the artist; and La Congiunta, a small museum in Giornico, Switzerland, designed by architect Peter Märkli, Josephsohn’s long time friend.

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Martin Creed

29 Aug – 31 Oct 2015, Hauser & Wirth Zürich

Opening: Friday 28 August 6 – 8 pm
Followed by the Season Opening Summer Party
Performance by Martin Creed and his Band

Hauser & Wirth Zürich is pleased to present an exhibition of new work from Martin Creed, which opens on 29 August 2015. Featuring works made in wood, plastic, neon, wool, canvas and carpet tiles, the exhibition highlights Creed’s innovative approach to a broad range of materials and his ongoing fascination with the commonplace.

‘You can’t separate anything from peoples’ experience of it, and since people are living beings who, who, who die, you know, err… it basically means nothing is ever the same, you know, from moment to moment. So I, so I think that that, so thinking about that got me into thinking, oh, I should, I need to make work in the light of that. And so, and I think that got me into making a lot of work that does change, that is, that is basically like a live event. But that comes from thinking that everything is a live event, you know. A painting on a wall is a live event, because the painting is only on the wall if people are looking at it and, sort of, realising that it’s on the wall, you know. And so the combination of the painting and the people: that’s a live event…’ – Martin Creed In Your Face: Interview, Martin Creed with Carrie Scott, Miami FL, December 2014

For Creed, there is no border between life and art. His approach means that he can use any form of expression or media, since the key element for him is the process of creation – in his words, ‘trying to live life better’. Frequently he will make works that develop out of a set of instructions or rules he imposes on himself. Seeing what happens when certain components are tied down is typical of the playful spirit in which he lets his ideas develop. For instance, in a work such as ‘Work No. 2209 Woman with dog at a table’ (2015), Creed painted without a visual source, using only the verbal cues from listening to someone else describing a photograph.

Creed also experiments by means of accumulation, often creating forms of progression in size, height, tone, or by presenting things ordered, classified or stacked to create idiosyncratic and purposeless taxonomies. ‘Work No. 1804’ (2014) consists of a modular steel framework, containing as many different types of clear and textured glass that were available at the time of production. A similar system can be seen in the vibrant ‘Work No. 2329’ (2015), where 12 individual wooden boards painted in different colours of imitation wood grain form a polychromatic field.

Creed respects things for the way they are, often engaging in very minimal interventions, in a way letting materials speak for themselves. ‘Work No. 2309’ (2015) and Work No. 2157’ (2015) each consist of 16 uniform bands of different coloured wool, one set of which consists of a range of all the available un-dyed natural fibres, the other a randomly arranged complete spectrum of dyed varieties. This play with ideas of series and sequences, variation and repetition, is in Creed’s case an end in itself, the seed or ingredient for making a picture and the picture itself.

Words and sound play an essential role in Martin Creed’s work. He considers his work as a musician and composer as inseparable from his work as a visual artist. Indeed, his paintings and sculptures can be thought of very much like pieces of music, in which each interpretation is different and in which rhythm and colour plays an important role. In ‘Work No. 2325’ (2015), nine differently coloured and evenly spaced neon tubes spell out the word WHATEVER. Its ambiguity as colloquial street slang, utterly democratic or pure nonsense is quintessentially Creed.

To reduce the gap between art practice as a discipline and the real world as life, since 2011 Creed has worked directly in the gallery in the weeks before the opening of an exhibition. He understands ‘art’ not as a defined concept but as something immediate, creative and live. He is increasingly interested in the performative nature of painting and the particular relationship between a body’s movements and the shapes it produces. In this exhibition, certain works have been made working with dancers whose movement, with paintbrushes held in their feet, translates directly as the forms produced on the painting. Reconciling the flux of reality and working across all media, Creed’s practice represents the true juncture of art and life.

In conjunction with the exhibition, Creed has developed a number of wall paintings which are presented in the public space of the Löwenbräu. Like all works by Creed, these wall paintings are subordinated to strict rules and executed by commercial paint rollers. The stripes match exactly with the width of the paint rollers and cover 50% of the wall.

About the Artist
Martin Creed was born in Wakefield, England in 1968 and grew up in Glasgow. He lives and works in London and Alicudi, Italy. He has exhibited extensively worldwide, and in 2001 he won the Turner Prize for ‘Work No. 227 The lights going on and off’. Recent major solo exhibition and projects include Kunsthalle Vogelmann, Kunstverein Heilbronn, Heilbronn, Germany (2015); Hayward Gallery, London, England (2014); The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh PA (2013); Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield CT (2013); ‘Work No. 202’, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada (2012); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago IL (2012); ‘Work No. 1059’, The Scotsman Steps, Edinburgh, Scotland (2011); Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas TX (2011); ‘Things’, The Common Guild, Glasgow, Scotland (2010); ‘Work No. 409’, Royal Festival Hall Elevator, London, England (2010); ‘Work No. 245’, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France (2009); Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima, Japan (2009); and the Duveens Commission, Tate Britain, London (2008).