ART CITIES:Zurich-Openings 11/6/16

“New Work” at Mai 36 Galerie, presents a new group of works by John Baldessari that reminiscent of film stills. The artist uses a combination of text and image, linking vibrantly coloured pictures and captions to a contrasting white background. The subject matter in these new works appears to be randomly linked with the accompanying captions, sometimes to humorous effect. “Goethe” (2015), for instance, shows a person brandishing a weapon, while the caption GOETHE seems to be entirely unrelated. Similarly, “Radio” (2015) shows a scene in an abattoir with the title RADIO.  By providing captions that do not appear to be directly related to the image, Baldessari undermines conventional ways of reading. However perplexing these montages might be, the associations they trigger unleash a broad spectrum of meaning and open up surprising perceptual possibilities. And so, behind a seemingly random approach lurks an artistic idea that inspires the viewer to think out of the box. Info: Mai 36 Galerie, Rämistrasse 37, Zürich, Duration: 11/6-8/8/16, Days & Hours: The-Fri 11:00-18:30, Sat 11:00-16:00, www.mai36.com

For the first years since 1993 Galerie Mark Müller does not participate in Art Basel, the Gallery organizes the group exhibition “Tango Them Basel” by artists of the gallery, many of whom are represent more than 20 years. Each of their works in the exhibition is exemplary of their distinct point of view within the almost infinite genre of painting. From seemingly monochromatic to breathtakingly colorful and from radically minimalistic to densely layered compositions. The variety of forms, materials and concepts continuously question and redefine the boundaries of painting and create new impulses by reflecting on the development and historical background of various genres. Exhibited artists include: Reto Boller, Katharina Grosse, Joseph Marioni, Judy Millar, Christine Streuli, Markus Weggenmann and others. Info: Galerie Mark Müller, Hafnerstrasse 44, Zürich, Duration: 11/6-23/7/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 12:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-16:00, www.markmueller.ch

The retrospective “Kurt Schwitters: Merz” bring together a selection of 70 works across all media. These include key works of each period of Kurt Schwitters. The exhibition is on presentation the fully transformed Galerie Gmurzynska space designed by the late Zaha Hadid. This collaboration results from the idea of an architectural homage by Zaha Hadid to the famous “Merz Bau” of Kurt Schwitters. The retrospective pays tribute to the second important artistic influence on Hadid’s work, Kurt Schwitters. Since Galerie Gmurzynska, is in the same building complex that once housed the famous Galerie Dada run by artists Tristan Tzara and Hugo Ball, and with Zurich celebrating 100 years of DADA this year, this retrospective is both overdue and extremely timely.  Adrian Notz, the director of Cabaret Voltaire where the DADA movement originated in 1916 has created sections devoted to archival documents covering Schwitters’s important ventures into poetry, theatre, stage design and sound which complement and further contextualize his unique visual praxis. The retrospective also shines a light on Kurt Schwitters’s significant influence on a whole range of artistic generations succeeding. Info: Galerie Gmurzynska, Paradeplatz 2, Zurich, Duration: 12/6-30/9/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10:00-18:00, Sat 10:00-16:00, www.gmurzynska.com

The exhibition “Form in Colour” focuses on David Smith’s practice between 1958 and 1964, the important final years of his life. The late ‘50s marked a dramatic expansion of his ambition and productivity and by the ‘60s Smith was at the height of his creative powers, garnering international attention as the leading sculptor of his generation. Exploring the dialogue between Smith’s use of form and color, geometry and gesture, the exhibition brings together a selection of painted steel sculptures and spray-paint works, highlighting Smith’s objective to merge the concerns of two- and three-dimensional media. Around 1958, almost immediately after the invention of the aerosol spray can, Smith began his “Sprays” series. Made simultaneously to some of his most rigorously geometric sculpture, the Sprays are often loosely gestural. Though the Sprays freed Smith’s form from the constraints of gravity, and his sculpture, for Smith the two mediums were conceptually continuous. The exhibition’s inclusion of both sculpture and painting enriches the viewer’s understanding of Smith’s oeuvre, emphasising his conviction that every facet of his visual output represents an essential element of his total artistic vision.  The sculptures featured in the exhibition illustrate Smith’s increasing focus on the visual nature of three-dimensional work, and its potential as a painterly medium.  Info: Hauser & Wirth Gallery, Limmatstrasse 270, Zurich, Duration: 12/6-18/9/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 11:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-17:00, www.hauserwirth.com

Galerie Eva Presenhuber presents “Matthew Mark Luke John and Other Photographs”, an exhibition of new photographs by Torbjørn Rødland.  Several photographs on view feature gooey, sticky substances that negotiate the spaces between objects or body parts, rendering them less discrete and placing them in intimate connection with one another.  The photograph flattens the world it depicts, but it also makes room for a life-giving fluidity, bringing together otherwise separate forms in a single imaginative continuum.  Rødland’s images are not created and thus cannot be read, according to a single interpretive framework.  They are dependent upon a willingness to wrestle with the diversity of life as a constantly evolving system of physical phenomena, emotional reaction, and cultural exchange.  Since Rødland operates under the condition that any of these modes can take precedence over the others at any given time, the range of what his photographs make visible is quite broad. The opening of the exhibition coincides with the inauguration of a project Rødland produced for Manifesta 11 in collaboration with Dr. Danielle Heller Fontana, a Zürich-based dentist.  Info: Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Löwenbräu Areal, Limmatstr. 270, Zurich, Duration: 12/6-27/8/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 11:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-17:00, http://presenhuber.com

To celebrate the centenary of the Dada movement, Hauser & Wirth Gallery presents “Schwitters Miró Arp”, an exhibition of Kurt Schwitters and Hans Arp in the context of works by Joan Miró. Each of these artists shared an interest in the fusion of painting and sculpture through the art of assemblage. While Schwitters dramatically expanded the artistic frame of reference with his Merzbilder, particularly through the use of materials found on the street, and Arp continued to develop his abstract organic reliefs, Miró found his own raw yet poetic way of engaging with the material. Miró’s play with geometric and organic forms can be interpreted as a link between the artistic expression of Schwitters, who had already begun to distance himself from the reproduction of natural forms in 1918, and the biomorphic compositions created by Arp. Their mutual influence upon one another resonated throughout their careers and into their late works. This exhibition is dedicated to the re-evaluation and rediscovery of three personalities from art history, who instigated a material language that continues to inform contemporary art today. Comprising over 100 key works from American and European museums as well as international private collections, the exhibition offers new perspectives on Schwitters, Miró and Arp, as well as a deeper insight into Dada and Surrealism. Info: Curator: Dr. Dieter Buchhart, Hauser & Wirth Gallery, Limmatstrasse 270, Zurich, Duration: 12/6-18/9/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 11:00-18:00, Sat 11:00-17:00, www.hauserwirth.com