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Rémy Zaugg Hommage

Showroom MAI 36 GALERIE, Raemistrasse 35, Zurich
Reception: Friday, March 4, 2016, 6 to 8 p.m.
Exhibition: March 5 through April 30, 2016
Opening hours: Tue-Fri 11 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., Sat 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Rémy Zaugg (born 1943 in Courgenay, died 2005 in Basel), was one of the most radical Swiss artists of our time. His works and writings are among the most profound reflections on our perception of the world. The image is a privileged platform for existential research by the artist since, in its spatial individualisation and immediate presence, it inevitably contributes to individual perception. The traditional status of the image as an exemplum in western culture virtually predestines it to throw light on general statements through concrete individual cases. Yet Rémy Zaugg's images, which give the non-mimetic medium of language the standing of an independent visual element, nevertheless refer to the impossibility of closing the gap between thought and sensuous perception. As Gerhard Mack wrote in his monograph on Rémy Zaugg, his pictures refer to this gap before which all processes of cognition and understanding can be no more than an approximation.

Throughout his forty-year career that began in the 1970s, Zaugg remained preoccupied with human perception. His paintings, works on paper, public sculpture, architectural design, curating and criticism explore how vision and consciousness are linked. He is best known for text-based paintings in various languages.

HOMMAGE at Mai 36 Galerie combines selected works from all the artist's creative stages and thus affords a specific view of his work. It throws light on the discussion about the conditions of the image and its perception in his early works, which direct the viewer's attention specifically to the individual elements of the image. The use of language serves primarily as a commentary and a means of analysis. The frequently paradox situation of the image in space, which can refer to something outside itself –for example in the series, dating from 1994, entitled NOT HERE – is just as much as a subject for reflection as the limits of its perceptibility in the group Tableau Aveugle 1986-1991). In the mid-1980s, however, Rémy Zaugg tended to regard the image more and more frequently as a subject for linguistic articulation as well, a subject that entered into a dialogue with the viewer. In evocative speech-images of crystalline beauty, it challenges the viewer to engage in active participation in the constitution of the picture. In fact, this can lead to the inversion of the traditional relationship between the image and the viewer .

Zaugg has had solo exhibitions at Centre Georges Pompidou, Kunstmuseum Basel, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Musée d'art contemporain de Lyon, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Berlin’s Nationalgalerie, and CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain in Bordeaux, among other institutions. His work has also been included in Documenta 7 as well as group exhibitions at venues such as Reina Sofia Madrid, The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Chicago’s MoCA, and Magasin III in Stockholm.
Questions of Perception, a comprehensive solo exhibition curated by Javier Hontoria, will be held at the Palacio de Velázquez by Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid in collaboration with Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen from March 31 through August 28, 2016

The opening is on Friday, March 4 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Visual materials are available on request ([email protected]).
We look forward to welcoming you at the gallery and thank you for your interest.
Mai 36 Galerie
Victor Gisler March 2016

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Stephan Balkenhol

Opening: Thursday, March 10, 2016, 6 - 8 pm
Exhibition: March 11 - April 16, 2016
Opening hours: Tue-Fri 11 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., Sat 11 a.m. to 4.p.m.

Stephan Balkenhol (born in Fritzlar, Germany, in 1957) is the premier spirit behind the revival of figurative sculpture in the early 1980s. He began making his trademark figurative sculptures in response to the abstract, minimalist and conceptual strategies of the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts, on a heritage that ranges from early Christian sculpture to Modernism. Stephan Balkenhol's work is characterised by his colourfully painted and roughly hewn wooden sculptures and reliefs. Balkenhol's motifs are larger-than-life or dwarflike men, women and animals, heads and hybrid figures of humans and animals sculpted from huge tree trunks. The same tree trunks also serve as the plinths, which are inseparably joined to the figure.

Marks made by the tools, grooves, fissures and cracks remain visible, testifying to the working process. This does not preclude a strong sense of realism, reinforced by the treatment of contours, the pose of the figures and the way they are painted.

In stoic poses, they seem to be in a state of suspended animation, gazing into emptiness or at a point unknown to the observer. Thus the figures remain distant, anonymous and enigmatic, and strangely lacking in emotion. The observer feels reminded of something, only to doubt his perception a moment later. This creates a feeling of discomfiture because the hyper-individual and timeless figures hold up a mirror to the observer.

Not only the men and the women but also the animals reveal nothing about themselves; they tell no stories and represent nothing. They are inconspicuous, ageless and difficult to pin down; they show no emotions and appear curiously detached. They are simply there, serenely self-contained, as if gazing into the void; they are always the same and always new. Enigmatic, nameless and timeless, they are both distinctively personal and blandly anonymous. By eschewing psychological implications, the artist brings to the fore archetypical patterns of existence and emotions, so that his figures – especially those in public spaces – also function as mirrors that reflect viewers’ feelings, desires and hopes.Stephan Balkenhol ranks among Germany’s most renowned international sculptors. Since 1992 he has been a professor at the State Academy of the Arts in Karlsruhe. Stephan Balkenhol has been represented by Mai 36 Galerie since 1989. His works, regularly on view internationally since the 1980s, enjoy eye-catching presentation in public space in a number of major cities.

Opening: Thursday, March 10, 2016 – 6 to 8 p.m. Stephan Balkenhol will be in attendance.

For visual materials, please contact us at ([email protected]).

We look forward to seeing you at the gallery, and thank you for your interest.

Mai 36 Galerie
Victor Gisler March 2016