Adam Szymczyk – författare

Pawel Althamer is responsible for some of the most expansive artworks of the past decade -- expansive not in the traditional, physical sense but in the social and experiential sense. Though he creates stunning sculptures of the human form, much of his work consists of human interaction, often placing the viewer's own consciousness in the starring role.

The new building for the City of Zurich Police’s criminal investigation branch, completed in 2021, was a house of art before it became a house of the police. For Other Voices, Other Rooms, an extraordinary art-and-architecture project, curator Adam Szymczyk invited international artists to engage with the building’s architecture and institutional context. The resulting works by Ross Birrell (Scotland, UK), Banu Cennetoğlu (Turkey), Zehra Doğan (Kurdistan, Turkey), David Harding (Scotland, UK), Hiwa K (Germany, born in Kurdistan, Turkey), and Daniel Knorr (Germany, born in Romania) were on public display in the building in 2021, before the police moved in.Only David Harding’s contribution has remained as a permanent and publicly accessible artwork, a text installation that is now embedded in the concrete floor outside the building’s main entrance. However, the entire process of the project was documented by Zurich-based photographer Melanie Hofmann. A selection of her shots is also permanently connected to the building in the shape of screen prints on interior walls. They bear witness to its past life and preserve the spaces of thought created by art.Through images and texts, this lavishly designed book offers insights into a unique art project that responds to the challenges and potential of art and building in a way that is as consistent as it is productive.

Hannes Schupbach is a filmmaker, painter, performance artist and curator of film programs. He did his education as an artist at the schools of art and design in Zurich and Basel from 1988-91, and as a visiting student in cinema and performance studies (MA) at New York University. Schupbach is best known for his films, which have been shown in group shows in Switzerland and at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2005). Further events are scheduled at the Museum Reina Sofia, Madrid, Harvard Film Archive, Cambridge MA (April 2009) and the Tate Modern, London (May 2009). Schupbach has also worked extensively in painting, creating large, connected series of paintings, some of them reflecting his interest in music by the American composers John Cage and Morton Feldman. "Hannes Schupbach. Cinema Elements" is the first comprehensive monograph on Schupbach's work, published to accompany Schupbach first large solo show at the Kunsthalle Basel (January-March 2009). The book presents a vast number of large-size film-stills and of his serial paintings.Essays by expert authors and by Schupbach, on the key elements of his work as a film maker, a chronology of his oeuvre and biography and a comprehensive bibliography complete the images.