Fanni Fetzer – författare

Strategies of Playful Resistance Within the Consumer Society Guy Ben Ner makes a lot out of very little, radically integrating both himself and his private surroundings into his work. His family’s apartment in Tel Aviv serves as a film location for the video artist, as do the aisles of a furniture store. In these often grotesque settings, the influence of economics and politics on the most intimate human relationships becomes apparent. In conversation with his close friend and fellow artist Christian Jankowski, Ben Ner provides insight into the process of creating his works. For what seems improvised is based on months of research and draws on an extensive knowledge of film history, and it is this discrepancy between improvised situations and the rigor of his artistic concepts that characterizes his work. Using terms such as “aesthetics,” “fantasy,” “family,” or “citation,” curator Fanni Fetzer develops an alphabet of resistance in Ben Ner’s oeuvre. Consequently, this publication aims to convey the artist’s clear political stance and his strategy of playful resistance.

Meditations on natureWith cry me a river, Ugo Rondinone returns to his roots. This monograph, published in conjunction with his retrospective at Kunstmuseum Luzern, brings together works inspired by natural forces, weather phenomena and the sublimity of the mountains. Ugo Rondinone’s work has been shaped by the overwhelming beauty of the landscape in which he grew up in. The artist draws on his origins with love and humor: a thunderstorm, snow flurries or a school of fish inspire his sculptural creations. His installations are instantly recognizable, with a quality that derives from their simplicity.

Swiss painter Robert Zund (1827-1909), also known in Switzerland as 'Master of the Beech Leaf', is revered for his light-flooded paintings of bucolic landscapes. Swiss photographer Tobias Madorin, born 1965, has gained international recognition for his tableau-like images that document the interaction between the inhabitants and their surrounding environment. This new book, published to coincide with an exhibition at Kunstmuseum Luzern in summer 2017, features work by both artists. Rather than merely enjoying the beauty of the sun-lit paradise Zund depicts in his precise manner, the book invites us to look more closely. For this purpose, Zund's paintings are juxtaposed with Madorin's photographs of the same views, captured today with an analogue large format camera. Thanks to the slowness of the procedure and the wealth of detail achieved in working with such an apparatus, Madorin's photographs boast an intensity comparable to that of Zund's paintings in terms of precision of the gaze. Observation, the gaze, and the aptitude to see is the real topic of this exhibition and accompanying book.

Since 1997, artist Claude Sandoz has been sharing his time between his native Switzerland and the Caribbean island of St Lucia. Each time he returns from the Antilles, he brings back chests of sketches and drawings produced during his stay. The island topic provides an assortative focal point for his exuberant work. Sandoz is no longer a tourist, he has 'gone native' at his second home and developed a much more complex relationship with St Lucia than a mere seasonal artist's residence would allow.This moment in Sandoz's art that ethnologists describe as going native is the focus of this new monograph: when own and alien match, overlay with and possibly enrich each other. The book features a vast selection of Sandoz's works, complemented by topical essays and a conversation with the artists. Interspersed poems by Caribbean writers round out the book.Text in English and German.