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Aldo Mozzini. Casematte ist das erste grosse Buch über den Schweizer Künstler Aldo Mozzini. Die Monografie zeigt seine vitale Kunst in mehr als 200 Abbildungen sowie in Texten bekannter Schweizer Kuratorinnen und Kuratoren. Ein Gespräch mit dem Künstler rundet den Band ab, der Mozzinis Beitrag zur zeitgenössischen Kunstszene der Schweiz hervorhebt. Aldo Mozzini, geboren 1956 in Locarno, lebt und arbeitet seit den 1980er-Jahren in Zürich. Galerien und Museen in der Schweiz, in Italien und in Frankreich zeigen seine Werke in Einzel- und Gruppenausstellungen, 2012 und 2019 wurde er mit dem Swiss Art Award ausgezeichnet. Im Laufe der Jahre hat er Tausende von Zeichnungen, Gemälden, Objekten, Fotografien, Skulpturen und Installationen geschaffen und sich dabei rastlos von einer Ausdrucksform zur anderen bewegt. Das Buch lässt 40 Jahre von Mozzinis Karriere Revue passieren und greift verschiedene Aspekte seines so humorvollen wie poetischen Schaffens auf. Das Ergebnis der künstlerischen Suche ist ein beeindruckendes malerisches und grafisches Werk, das eng mit den Skulpturen und Installationen verbunden ist, die nach wie vor die bevorzugten Medien Aldo Mozzinis sind.

2024 marks the centenary of the publication of André Breton's Surrealist Manifesto, and thus the birth of the Surrealist movement. This German language book celebrates 100 years of Surrealism, combining historical retrospection, interpretation, and the perspective of contemporary artists who explore Surrealist themes and forms in their work. It is based on the Surrealist literary magazine Le Grand Jeu, which was published between 1928 and 1930. Games to which the Surrealists referred are a core theme of the volume: chess and the "Jeu de Marseille", a special set of tarot cards created by the Surrealists in the south of France, where many had to flee from German occupation between 1940 and 1944. Alongside, the essays investigate topics such as identity, metamorphosis, esotericism, kabbalah, and magic, as well as speculation, abstraction, and automatism. Moreover, new light is shed on the female members and affiliates of the Surrealist movement, including Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington, Suzanne Duchamp, Leonor Fini, Gladys Hynes, Meret Oppenheim, Dorothea Tanning, and others. The book is also an homage to the never-published fourth issue of Le Grand Jeu, which has been preserved as a maquette and is reproduced here in facsimile images.

2024 marks the centenary of the publication of André Breton's Surrealist Manifesto, and thus the birth of the Surrealist movement. This French language book celebrates 100 years of Surrealism, combining historical retrospection, interpretation, and the perspective of contemporary artists who explore Surrealist themes and forms in their work. It is based on the Surrealist literary magazine Le Grand Jeu, which was published between 1928 and 1930. Games to which the Surrealists referred are a core theme of the volume: chess and the "Jeu de Marseille", a special set of tarot cards created by the Surrealists in the south of France, where many had to flee from German occupation between 1940 and 1944. Alongside, the essays investigate topics such as identity, metamorphosis, esotericism, kabbalah, and magic, as well as speculation, abstraction, and automatism. Moreover, new light is shed on the female members and affiliates of the Surrealist movement, including Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington, Suzanne Duchamp, Leonor Fini, Gladys Hynes, Meret Oppenheim, Dorothea Tanning, and others. The book is also an homage to the never-published fourth issue of Le Grand Jeu, which has been preserved as a maquette and is reproduced here in facsimile images.

James Baldwins (1924-1987) Essay «Stranger in the Village», den der grosse amerikanische Schriftsteller Anfang der 1950er Jahre während eines Aufenthalts im Schweizer Alpendorf Leukerbad verfasst hat, ist Ausgangspunkt für dieses Buch. Es dokumentiert eine künstlerische Auseinandersetzung mit dem Thema Rassismus in der Schweiz und insbesondere im Kunst- und Kulturbetrieb. Werke internationaler zeitgenössischen Kunstschaffenden wie Igshaan Adams, Kader Attia, Omar Ba, James Bantone, Marlene Dumas, Melanie Grauer, Jonathan Horowitz, Sasha Huber, Pierre Koralnik, Glenn Ligon, Martine Syms und anderen reagieren darin auf Baldwins literarisch-politische Abhandlung. Texte ausgewiesener Expertinnen und Experten begleiten die künstlerische Auseinandersetzung und geben fundierten Einblick in die Folgen des herrschenden strukturellen Rassismus. Der Band Stranger in the Village ist eine Aufforderung zum Tabubruch, indem er uns einen Spiegel vorhält. Er stellt Fragen, die uns alle angehen und lässt uns die Brisanz des Alltagsrassismus durch die Kunst erkennen.

Als Vorreiterin der Bewegung der Nouvelle tapisserie revolutionierte die polnische Künstlerin Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930-2017) in den 1960er-Jahren die Praxis des Webens und hob diese in den Rang eines skulpturalen Ausdrucks. Abakanowicz nutzte die Möglichkeiten organischer Fasern wie Wolle, Sisal oder Leinen als lebendiges, formbares Material, um ihre auf der Beobachtung der Natur und des Menschen gründende künstlerische Vision umzusetzen. Ihre spektakulären und monumentalen gewebten Wand- und Raumarbeiten prägten mehrere Ausgaben der Biennale der Tapisserie, die zwischen 1962 und 1995 in Lausanne stattfanden, und machten sie international bekannt. Dieses französischsprachige Buch beleuchtet, welch entscheidende Rolle die Stadt Lausanne am Beginn der internationalen Karriere und für die künstlerischen Forschungen von Magdalena Abakanowicz gespielt hat. Ihre Überlegungen und kreativen Wege werden den Orten und Begegnungen in Lausanne und der übrigen Schweiz gegenübergestellt: die Biennale der Tapisserie und die Galerie Alice Pauli, Kunstförderinnen und Sammler, Kunsthistoriker und Freundinnen.

Drawing occupies a prominent place in the work of Paul Klee (1879-1940). Klee attached great importance to drawing, and in particular to the line as the principle from which the realization and visual generation of an idea emanates. This aspect is also a core interest of collectors Sylvie and Jorge Helft, who over almost five decades have assembled some seventy of Klee's pencil, pen, and pastel drawings, as well as watercolors, etchings, and lithographs, created by the artist between 1914 and 1940. The Helfts' Klee collection forms an extraordinarily coherent whole. This book, published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana (MASI) in Lugano, features for the first time this unique selection from Klee's oeuvre. A conversation between Sylvie and Jorge Helft and MASIS's director Tobia Bezzola, as well as essays by philosopher Francisco Jarauta, art and literary critic Juan Manuel Bonet, and art dealer and curator Achim Moeller, complement the full color plates.

Hannah Höch (1889-1978) moved between differing worlds: as an editorial assistant with a major Berlin-based magazine publisher, and as the only woman who could hold her own in the German capital's vibrant Dada scene of the 1920s. Höch broke with the traditions of representation and vision. Her works dissected a world marked by the catastrophe of the Great War and an intense consumer culture, and reassembled it in revolutionary, poetic, and often ironic ways. Höch kept to her artistic means and her poetic-radical imagination, shimmering between social observation and dream world, even in the post-WWII period. Scissors and glue were the weapons of her art of montage, of which she was a co-inventor. Cutting and montage also shaped film, still a new medium in the 1920s, which strongly influenced Höch's art: she understood her assembled pictures as static films. This richly illustrated and expertly annotated book explores comprehensively for the first time Höch's fascination with film and the visual culture of the modern industrial age. It demonstrates how montage evolved in a field of tension between artistic experimentation, commercial exploitation, and political appropriation. A text on photomontage by Hannah Höch, writen in 1948, and text-collage on the history of montage, in which major protagonists of Modernism and Avant-garde such as Sergej Eisenstein, Raoul Hausmann, László Moholy-Nagy, Walter Ruttman, Kurt Schwitters, Theo van Doesburg, and Dsiga Wertow, have their say, round out this volume.

Amidst the turmoil of World War II, Zurich was an enclave where modern art held its ground. In the aftermath, Concrete Art, design, and the "Swiss Style" became emblematic of a modern Switzerland. Influenced by De Stijl, Russian Constructivism, and the Bauhaus, the Zurich Concretists aimed to transform society through aesthetics, design, and architecture. Circle! Square! Progress! brings together the main protagonists Max Bill, Camille Graeser, Verena Loewensberg, and Richard Paul Lohse along with precursors such as Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Georges Vantongerloo, Theo van Doesburg, and Anton Stankowski. Contemporary witnesses, artist Peter Fischli and curator Bice Curiger, add their unique perspectives. The volume vividly describes the Zurich Concretist's conections with European avant-garde, delving into the hostilities, scandals, and their ultimately successful struggle for recognition against the backdrop of the 20th century's upheavals.

Swiss artists Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann have been collaborating since 1990, gaining much international recognition as Lang/Baumann (or L/B). Their collaborative work comprises installations, sculptures, murals, and floor paintings, as well as architectural interventions. Models play a key role in their creative process. This book brings together for the first time all the models that L/B have made for the projects they have pursued over 33 years. It thus forms a complete catalog of their oeuvre to date in miniature format, featuring also those projects that were never developed beyond the model stage. A model can serve three purposes: three-dimensional sketch, test of a concept, or presentation. L/B use all three types. The sketch model is quickly made, fragile, and merely manifests a thought. The working model is used to try to test formal or technical details. The presentation model is made to show the result once the design process is complete, and this is usually elaborately built. Some 120 color illustrations are supplemented by two essays on iconography in Lang/Baumann's work and on the playful aspect of model making. A conversation with Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann rounds off the book.

Edition VFO, Verein für Originalgraphik (Association for Original Prints) was established in 1948 to pursue the goals of publishing contemporary art and making collecting affordable to broader audiences. The Zurich-based, much-recognized non-profit institution remains committed to the dissemination of contemporary art, and is now the largest of the few remaining publishers of original printed editions in Switzerland. Print Art Now marks Edition VFO's 75th anniversary. It brings together three exhibitions in Switzerland, at the Musée Jenisch in Vevey, the Museo Civico Villa dei Cedri in Bellinzona, and the Kunsthaus Grenchen, all curated on the occasion of the jubilee. They respectively explore the topics of collecting prints today, the technical and artistic challenges of printmaking, and the emancipation of print as a medium within the traditional hierarchy of visual art. The featured artworks demonstrate how print is constantly evolving as an artistic technique and has become equal to painting, photography, sculpture, or video. The beautiful volume also offers an up-to-date survey of printmaking in Switzerland and highlights its relevance in contemporary art practice.

Markus Raetz (1941-2020) gilt als einer der bedeutendsten Vertreter der Schweizer Gegenwartskunst, dessen Schaffen auch in Deutschland und Österreich grosse Beachtung findet. Sein vielgestaltiges Werk umfasst rund 1500 Skulpturen, Installationen und Objekte, die uns spielerisch bewusst machen, dass die Wahrnehmung der Welt vom Standpunkt der Betrachtung abhängt. Das Kunstmuseum Bern widmet dem Künstler im Spätsommer 2023 die grosse Retrospektive MARKUS RAETZ. oui non si no yes no. Im Zentrum der Ausstellung wie auch des dazu erscheinenden Buches Markus Raetz. Atelier stehen die bislang nur vereinzelt ausgestellten Objekte und Mobiles, die nun erstmals in grösserem Umfang präsentiert und im Gesamtzusammenhang gewürdigt werden. Essays des Ausstellungskurators Stephan Kunz und des französischen Kunsthistorikers und Kurators Didier Semin werden begleitet von Bildern des Schweizer Fotografen Alexander Jaquemet. Allesamt im Atelier Markus Raetz, aufgenommen, geben sie einen unmittelbaren Einblick in dessen verschiedene Arbeitszusammenhänge.

For more than 25 years, Swiss architects Bernhard Aebi and Pascal Vincent have been running their practice with offices in Bern and Geneva. Housing is one of the firm's main fields of activity, yet it has also won a number of high-profile public commissions, such as the restoration and reconstruction of Switzerland's national parliament building in Berne, the renovation of the Swiss National Bank's Berne headquarters, and the south wing of Zurich's main train station. The images by photographers Adrian Scheidegger and Alexander Jaquemet, both longtime companions of the architects, demonstrate how the spaces they created gradually and naturally integrate with their environment. Writer Gianna Molinari joined Scheidegger and Jaquemet on their expeditions to Aebi & Vincent's buildings. Her literary snapshots supplement the images in this volume, stimulating our imagination of the inner life of these structures and their occupants.

Ernst Scheidegger (1923-2016) ranks among Switzerland's most distinguished 20th-century photographers. His portraits of artists made his name internationally. Scheidegger's photographs of Alberto Giacometti at his Paris studio or in his native Val Bregaglia in Switzerland continue to shape the public image of this celebrated artist today. Marking the centenary of Ernst Scheidegger, who was also the founder of our publishing house, this book offers a fresh and contemporary look at his multi-faceted body of work. It is based on an extensive reappraisal of his estate and features a concise selection of iconic and lesser-known images that demonstrated Scheidegger's prowess as a portraitist. More importantly, however, the volume enables an encounter with Scheidegger's hitherto little-published early work and thus undertakes a reassessment of his entire oeuvre. Essays by Tobia Bezzola, art historian and director of the MASI Lugano, Alessa Widmer, curator and artistic director of Photo Basel art fair, Kunsthaus Zürich conservator Philippe Büttner, and Helen Grob, Scheidegger's long-time companion, trace his career and self-concept as a photographer and round off this beautifully designed photo book.

For centuries, the Alps were an almost insurmountable barrier on the way from Europe's north to the south, and vice versa. The Romans replaced some of the ancient narrow transalpine mule tracks with their famous roadways. Paved roads were introduced in the 19th century, soon followed by railroads with impressive bridges, viaducts, and tunnels. Today, 120 safe and comfortable highways and roads, as well as high-capacity railroad lines, serve as indispensable transit routes for Europe's people and economies. Without these passages, Switzerland would be an entirely different country: socially, culturally, economically, and militarily. Through some 80 large-format color and black-and-white images, Alpine Passes of Switzerland demonstrates the boldness of the country's modern Alpine crossings, their infrastructure and beautiful landscapes. Additional historic photographs convey earlier generations' courage and pioneering efforts to build the roads and railtracks that connect Europe's nations. Supplementary essays trace the history of the Alpine passes and highlight their significance for Swiss national identity, explain their military importance, and describe the vision that preceded the construction of new base tunnels across the St. Gotthard and Lötschberg massifs between 1994 and 2016: the future of rail transit across the Alps lies deep underground.

Whether Old Masters or young Swiss art, whether printed or drawn: with holdings of more than 160,000 works on paper, the Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich, the famous university's collection of prints and drawings, is one of the largest and finest of its kind in Switzerland and internationally. Albrecht Dürer, Maria Sibylla Merian, Rembrandt van Rijn, and Pablo Picasso are represented alongside contemporary greats such as Louise Bourgeois, Miriam Cahn, Fischli/Weiss, Urs Lüthi, and Shirana Shahbazi. Founded in 1867 as a classical academic study collection, the archive serves today as a focal point for scholars and art-lovers alike, and as the means for exchange between the university and the public. This lavishly illustrated book takes readers on a fascinating journey across six centuries of art history, featuring some 300 of the collection's highlights. An introductory essay on the history and evolution of the Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich and brief texts on 40 selected works accompany the illustrations. The volume is rounded off by personal statements by contemporary artists and researchers from various disciplines, who testify to and comment on the significance and topicality of the collection's holdings.

Etienne Delessert, born in Lausanne in 1941 and based in Lakeville, Connecticut, made his name as a graphic designer and illustrator in Paris and New York with advertising campaigns and posters, and later gained wide renown for his illustrations, animated films, and paintings. He has illustrated more than 80 books, all of which have become worldwide successes. Eleonore Peduzzi Riva, born in Basel in 1936, worked as a designer and design consultant for major brands such as Cassina, Artemide, and De Sede. The DS-600 modular sofa of 1972, created in collaboration with Ueli Berger, Heinz Ulrich, and Klaus Vogt, is an expression of her goal to enable people to design their personal habitat. Chantal Prod'Hom, also born in Lausanne in 1957, founded the Asher Edelman Foundation in the 1990s, where she staged visionary exhibitions featuring little-known artists, and traveled the world in search of design talent for Benetton's famous Fabrica. Between 2000 and 2022, she directed her native city's Musée cantonal de design et d'arts appliqués contemporains (mudac). Through her tireless commitment, she shapes and fosters public perception of design. Switzerland's Federal Office of Culture has awarded the 2023 Swiss Grand Award for Design to Etienne Delessert, Eleonore Peduzzi Riva, and Chantal Prod'Hom. This book introduces each of them through a concise text and an interview, as well as a brief biography, illustrated with images from their archives.

Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), one of the most significant figures in 20th-century art, was throughout his life closely attached to his family, and in particular to his parents Giovanni and Annetta Giacometti, in their native Swiss village of Stampa. At least once a week he wrote to the parents to keep them up-to-date on everything important to him, maintaining this routine even when a telephone was installed at their house in the remote Val Bregaglia. Their entire correspondence comprises more than 1,000 letters. For the first time ever, excerpts from this body of documents are now published in this volume. They reveal fascinating insights into this close family relationship and the manifold exchanges about core issues of Alberto's life and work as an artist. The letters tell of his artistic education in Switzerland and the early years in Paris-his studies at the art academy and encounters with the avant-garde, his joining with and later turning away from the Surrealist movement-as well as of his search for a new figuration between 1935 and 1946. Thus, the book provides entirely new knowledge about the evolution and circumstances of one of Modernity's greatest artists.

Upon his arrival in New York in the 1960s, Istanbul-born artist Burhan Dogançay (1929-2013) became deeply fascinated by the visual aesthetics of urban walls and murals. His interest focused on exploring public space and its significance as a forum for the debate of social and political as well as artistic norms. He continuously sketched and photographed walls and doorways, transferring many of the captured motifs into paintings. Over more than four decades, Dogançay compiled a vast body of photographic testimonials of urban life and discourse which he titled Walls of the World: a unique archive comprising some 30,000 images from 114 countries. This bilingual French-German book features a selection of Dogançay's paintings and photographs from various series within the entire Walls of the World collection. The pictures-like the walls themselves-are the result of superimposed layers and techniques. Through this use of different painting and collage techniques, they reflect the temporal dimension of these surfaces with the scribbles, posters, scraps, and graffiti accumulated on them. The essays that supplement the images investigate Dogançay's ongoing engagement with the urban wall as a projection surface as well as his method of combining photography and sketching as the basis for his remarkable graphic and painted art.

In recent years, painter and legendary art forger Wolfgang Beltracchi has opened a new chapter of his career. The core of his latest work is an extensive series of paintings, titled The Greats, that have been put on sale as digital artworks using NFT technology. Its starting point was the Salvator Mundi, a painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and sold in 2017 in an auction at Christie's in New York for $450m to an unknown buyer. Beltracchi studied the picture meticulously and created several hundred versions of the motif in a variety of styles, ranging from high renaissance to pop art, or depicting Jesus in the personification of Mick Jagger or Mao Zedong. The result is a fascinating game of deception with the disputed painting and its symbolism. This large-format book combines photographic insights into Beltracchi's everyday life in the studio by renowned Swiss photographer Alberto Venzago with a documentation of The Greats collection. Texts are contributed by Stanford University professor emeritus Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, German philosophers Peter Sloterdijk and Markus Gabriel, German journalist Ulrike Posche, German finance executive Leonhard Fischer, Swiss-based cryptocurrency and NFT expert Hansen Wang, Swiss art dealer Guido Persterer, and Alberto Venzago. A conversation between Beltracchi and Swiss writer and philosopher René Scheu rounds out this volume that describes and interprets the phenomenon of this extraordinary artist from a range of perspectives.

The long-term Photographic Observation Schlieren is a much-recognized unique research project that documents urban development in Switzerland. Over a period of fifteen years, a photographic record of building activity and urbanization processes was conducted to demonstrate how these are altering the character of a typical Swiss suburban community. The chosen example was the town of Schlieren, bordering the city of Zurich to the west, whose population grew from 13,000 to 20,000 residents during the observation period of 2005-20. At Sixty-nine locations throughout Schlieren, pictures were taken under identical conditions every two years that show the changes in the spatial interplay of buildings, streets, and green spaces. Simultaneously, series of topical detailed photographs were produced that focus on individual objects and tell of the appropriation, design, and aesthetics of habitats, such as store fronts, building entrances, playgrounds, parking entrances, etc. This two-volume book brings together the results of this spectacular research. The Archive volume features the entire body of the eight images taken at each of the sixty-nine sites to visualize the deep changes Schlieren has undergone during these fifteen years. The Essays volume combines the topical image series with essays that offer in-depth examination of the study's subject, detailed analyses and interpretations, and interviews by expert authors from various disciplines. Winner of the DAM Architectural Book Award 2023.

HR Giger (1940-2014) remains one of the outstanding figures in Swiss art and design history. He achieved international fame in 1979 for designing the fantastic creatures and eerie environments that terrified moviegoers in Ridley Scott's science fiction film Alien. Yet, before these iconic creations made him a celebrity and won him an Academy Award for visual effects, Giger was already highly regarded in the international art world of the 1960s and 1970s, for taking one of the most independent positions in the succession of Surrealism. First published in 2007, this only book to date on HR Giger's early work features a comprehensive collection of his drawings, early airbrush paintings, and designs for oppressive environments. It examines Giger's art from its origins and places it in an art history of horror. Most of the works shown in this volume are only rarely on public display. Here they are presented in dialogue with works by distinguished precursors such as Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Francisco de Goya, Henry Fuseli, Max Klinger, and James Ensor.

Taiwanese contemporary artist Yao Jui-chung has gained international renown for his imaginative, bold and incisive, and often humorous critiques of his country's complex and contested identity and history. Born in 1969, Yao grew up during a tumultuous period, when Taiwan transformed from authoritarianism to democracy. His art, which comprises photography, video, installation, and painting, draws inspiration from history, politics, and society, and from China's and Taiwan's ancient artistic and religious traditions and mythical worlds. As well as being an artist, Yao also works as a curator and writer and has published several books on Taiwanese art. This monograph is the first-ever comprehensive study of Yao Jui-chung's work in English, examining his practice over the past three decades. Featuring more than 200 images, it offers an essay by scholar, curator and Taiwan art specialist Sophie McIntyre and an in-depth interview with the artist by Hou Hanru, the artistic director of Rome's MAXXI. The book will appeal to specialists, collectors, and students of art, as well as scholars and students in Taiwan and China studies, politics, and history.

The career of Swiss painter Hedi Mertens (1893-1982) differs in many respects from that of other artists of her time. Following a classical art education in Zurich and Munich, she moved primarily in intellectual milieus that brought her closer to the Constructivist-Concrete art movement, which had an epicenter in Zurich around Max Bill and Richard Paul Lohse. Lohse was one of Mertens' most influential companions and interlocutors, together with Leo Leuppi, Arend Fuhrmann, and Helen Dahm, with whom she shared a deep fascination for the teachings of Indian guru Shri Meher Baba. At the age of 67, Mertens moved to Ticino, in southern Switzerland, where she finally let the manifold sources of inspiration flow into her own art. Within two decades Mertens created some 200 geometric-abstract paintings that urgently await their much-deserved appreciation. This first monograph on Hedi Mertens, published in conjunction with exhibitions at MASI Lugano and the Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich, brings the masterful art and eventful life of this Swiss painter into focus. It enables the rediscovery of a significant representative of Concrete art in Switzerland who has been overlooked too long.

The book's title-Taking Measures-has a double meaning: as a reference to the practices of measurement and to the political potential of power and resistance. Throughout their history to today, film and video have served as measuring devices for scientific, economic, political, and other purposes, and have been employed in a variety of fields beyond art. In acknowledging these uses also lies the opportunity for art to test its own effectiveness in public space and to uncover potential for resistance in artistic action. This book-which has evolved from a series of dialogues between artists and researchers as part of the research project Exhibiting Film: Challenges of Format at the University of Zurich-addresses issues of measures and formats in both content and design. In which practices of measurement, of the production of knowledge and evidence in the interest of useful research, are film and video involved? In what way can artistic practice not only make these involvements visible but challenge and test them? How can technologies of measurement in art be used politically and be made operative for the public sector? How can formats themselves, as the measures of art, be exhibited? How can they be put in relation to exhibition spaces and their economies of valorization, and how can this relationship be assessed? These questions are explored in illuminating and richly illustrated essays.

A humorous tribute to Matteo Thun, one of Italy's most distinguished designers and architects, and his work. In the summer of 2009, Swiss artist Walter Pfeiffer made an extensive trip from Zurich to the Italian island of Capri, taking photographs of some fifty of Thun's design objects en route. Yet, rather than doing a mere documentation of these items, Pfeiffer created highly lively "tableaux vivants." The artist was accompanied on his journey by Thun's two then teenage sons, who thus form the main visual narrative of the book and appear in many pictures together with their father's creations. A brief introduction by Matteo Thun's wife Susanne and an index of the depicted design gems round out this extraordinary and entertaining visual travelogue.

Swiss artist Rochus Lussi, born in 1965, examines the individual's existence in the mass. Issues of vulnerability, sensitivity, and defensibility are also key topics of his art, for which he mainly employs the mediums of sculpture and installation, but also drawings and performance. This first monograph on Lussi offers a broad survey of his work from thirty years, featuring small and multi-part installations, wood sculptures, works on paper, and photographs of his performance actions. The human figure is at the core of his early works, yet over time this begins to dissolve, and forms from everyday life, structures, draperies, surfaces of different body worlds come to the fore. The comprehensive visual presentation of Lussi's oeuvre is supplemented with essays contributed by art historians, curators, and art educators.

«Wir tauchen in Gerbers Welten ein, um uns zu verlieren und an erstaunlichen Orten wiederzufinden.» So charakterisiert der grosse Schweizer Schriftsteller Paul Nizon das Werk des Thuner Malers Theo Gerber (1928-1997) - einem Freigeist, der hierzulande nach wie vor ein Unbekannter ist. Dazu trug insbesondere der Künstler selbst bei, der die Bemühungen von Galeristen ablehnte, seine Malerei beim breiten Publikum bekannt zu machen. Erfolg bedeutete für Gerber nicht Ruhm und Ehre, sondern dass «seine Kunst eine andere Möglichkeit aufzeigt als die seiner Zeitgenossen». Dieses Hochhalten der künstlerischen Freiheit macht es unmöglich, den Stil- und Weltenbummler, der sich in einer Schaffenskrise zwei Jahre lang dem westafrikanischen Stamm der Dogon anschloss, einer konkreten Richtung zuzuordnen. Dieses Buch, das anlässlich einer umfassenden Theo-Gerber-Retrospektive im Kunstmuseum Thun erscheint, lässt diesem im besten Wortsinn unfassbaren Künstler endlich die verdiente Aufmerksamkeit zukommen.

Marguerite Saegesser (1922-2011) achieved fame in the US, her adopted country for many years, where her prints and paintings were repeatedly shown in group and solo exhibitions in California and New York over a period of two decades. In her native Switzerland, however, the artist and her multifaceted oeuvre are yet to be discovered. This book fills this gap, featuring Saegesser's art with a special focus on the monotype, a printing technique developed in the 17th century and producing only a single original at a time. It also demonstrates how Saegesser, who initially studied sculpture in Lausanne, found her artistic destiny in America. Key to her evolution was San Francisco's lively art scene of the late 1970s, and in particular the painter Sam Francis, an outstanding representative of action painting and abstract expressionism, who became her friend and precursor. His fascination with the monotype quickly transferred to Saegesser, who soon achieved mastery in it and made a significant contribution to the revival of the historic technique.

French sculptor Aristide Maillol (1861-1944) is sometimes referred to as the "Cézanne of sculpture" as he, like Paul Cézanne in the case of painting, paved the way for abstraction in his artistic field. Maillol began his career as a painter and produced a highly attractive body of work that is far too little known outside France. This book, published in conjunction with a comprehensive Maillol exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zürich, asks questions about the foundation of that male gaze at women that Maillol's art reflects, and how we perceive it today against the background of current gender debates. Franca Candrian's extraordinary photo essay confronts Maillol's Vénus au collier with works by modern and contemporary women artists from the Kunsthaus Zürich's collection. An essay by feminist art historian and curator Catherine McCormack explores the presence of this art-which in most cases depicts female nudes-in contemporary museums. Supplemented by an introduction by Philippe Büttner, curator of Kunsthaus Zürich's permanent collection, the book thus offers a new, different view of Aristide Maillol and his art.