Correspondance

In Correspondance we show works by artists from the gallery program. The exhibition captivates with its diversity of media: in addition to a video, an installation and photographs by the artist couple wiedemann/mettler, relief works and a sculpture by Mamiko Otsubo, paintings by Pierre Haubensak, two impressive wall paintings by Clare Goodwin can be seen. Works by guests, Christian Marclay and Fred Sandback, hang in the office.

The aim of the exhibition Correspondance is to show the various ways, in which artworks can be perceived by the public. To works of art their modes of reception are always inherent in their production and appearance. A further important point in the assessment of artworks is the correspondence between the viewer's feelings and the forms of expression.

In the first room the new video Tight II by wiedemann/mettler receives the public. The video shows Pascale Wiedemann's naked feet trying to squeeze into far too small, white highheeled shoes. Next to the video, the real shoes filled with wax stand on a pedestal. The video and the sculpture are flanked on the short longitudinal walls by two new, large photographs of the artist couple, based on pictures taken during a stay in California in 2018. These are superimpositions of interiors and landscapes that demand a considerable amount of orientation from visitors – comparable to the navigation in the metropolis of Los Angeles. The photographs extend the entrance area and have a glamorous mood that is reminiscent of Hollywood films. In addition, the reflection within the image corresponds with the reflection of the shop window. wiedemann/mettler unfold an ensemble in which questions of identity, gender and orientation are bundled.

At the beginning of the main room hangs a retrospective group of paintings by Pierre Haubensak, created at the beginning of his stay in New York in the early 1970s – Haubensak lived from 1969 to 1977 in a loft on Canal Street. In these filigree acrylic paintings Haubensak explored the possibilities of the pictorial expression: The pictures amaze with their color gradients and are related to Color Field painting. In them he dealt with American models such as the canvases of Barnett Newman, Brice Marden and Kenneth Noland. In addition, these works anticipate positions of Radical Painting, such as works by Marcia Hafif and Olivier Mosset after 1976. The 1970 painting Untitled (Manhattan Verticals) contains a direct reference to the towering city of Manhattan. In Vertical Sunset of 1971, the title already reveals that viewing habits are being questioned.

Vertical Sunset is followed by a group of concrete reliefs with inlaid discs of mirror-polished stainless steel by Mamiko Otsubo. The Japanese artist moved from New York to Los Angeles five years ago and works continuously on a group of reliefs in which round mirrors are inlaid in concrete and which, distributed over a wall, reveal a continuous pattern that transcends the single relief. The mirrors extend the pictorial space to the audience and reflect other works in the space.

Clare Goodwin has meticulously painted on two walls framing the entrance to the rear office two magnificent murals, Tom and Sylvia, in which oversized broken glass jagged lines and color fields are reproduced. This formal language is reminiscent of the cubist vocabulary used by Pablo Picasso in his tremendous painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907). The wall paintings correspond with another wall piece by Goodwin, which is currently on view in the Haus Konstruktiv in the group exhibition Concrete Contemporary: Now is always also a little of yesterday and tomorrow until 5 May 2019.

The delicate sculpture Untitled (purple with sticks) by Mamiko Otsubo dating from her time in New York in 2007 interrupts the groups of paintings in space. The peeled branches come from Central Park and are thus another small reminiscence of N.Y.C. in the exhibition.

In the back office spatially corresponding linocuts by Fred Sandback from 1979 and the revised record sleeve Westminster Gold by Christian Marclay from 1988 can be discovered. This work belongs to a group in which Marclay also reworked some covers of the Beatles' White Album and called them Ready Made monochromes. The album is The Best of Puccini, published by the record company Westminster Gold. Marclay cut out all the designations on the cover and replaced them with cardboard inlays.

The exhibition Correspondance combines different forms of expression from different times and places, be it from the early 1970s, the late 1980s and 2007 from New York, 2018 from Los Angeles or the immediate present from Zurich. The exhibition refers to correspondences with current exhibitions: Clare Goodwin's mural playfully thematizes the DNA of Zurich Constructive and Concrete Art. The installation arrangement by wiedemann/mettler focuses on questions of identity, gender and origin. The exhibition allows many cross-connections to be drawn and allows correspondences with places and
people to appear.