Nathalie Chaix – författare

Françoise Pétrovitch, born in 1964, is among the most distinguished contemporary artists in France. Her art reveals ambiguous, often transgressive worlds that play with conventional boundaries and defy interpretation. The intimate, the fragment, the disappearance, as well as themes such as doppelgängers, transition, and cruelty, run through her works, which are populated by animals, flowers, and creatures and whose atmosphere, alternately bright or nocturnal, rarely leaves a viewer untouched.Framed by the topic of absence, this volume features new and recent drawings, prints, and video art by Françoise Pétrovitch. Absence can be agonising, a tragedy. As counterpart to presence, it is characterised by longing and projection. It describes the passing of time, distance, and lack. Painting itself is also characterised by absence: the artist, the model, the landscape, or the past moment are not truly present.Richly illustrated and with essays on Pétrovitch’s art and the various techniques she uses, the book offers a deep look into the worlds she creates.Text in German and French.

The human hand, flexible, mobile and sensitive, is a fascinating and unique part of nature. Its shape and its practical as well as social function have inspired countless artists throughout history. This book explores representations of the human hand, and the glove as its accessory of choice, in art from the 17th century until today. Richly illustrated, it offers panorama of periods and media such as drawing, printmaking, painting, video, and sculpture that demonstrates the creative and metaphorical power of the human hand as a motif in art.The essays explore the rich and varied symbolism surrounding hands and gloves, and throw new light at the work of Austrian expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980). For Kokoschka, the topic of human hands was of remarkable importance. Throughout his career, they often appear in the foreground of his works, oversized, in dynamic, active postures and as instruments of expression. They embody Kokoschka’s attention to the human figure, the indisputable backbone of his thought and art.Text in French.

Driven by an existential quest, Thierry Barbier-Mueller (1960–2022), a Geneva-based real estate entrepreneur and patron of the arts, assembled an impressive collection of works by major Swiss and international artists, such as Marina Abramović, Silvia Bächli, Georg Baselitz Spencer Finch, Franz Gertsch, Nan Golding, Antony Gormley, Candida Höfer, Elsworth Kelly, Jannis Kounellis, Markus Raetz, Thomas Ruff, and Robert Wilson.This beautiful book, published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Musée Jenisch in Vevey, Switzerland, for the first time offers a survey of the Thierry Barbier-Mueller collection. Some 100 images of selected works from the collection are supplemented by interviews with artists represented in it. An essay that sheds light on the collection’s genesis and on Thierry Barbier-Mueller's approach to art and collecting rounds out the book.Text in English and French.