PRESS RELEASE

wiedemann/mettler Stage

9 December 2017 to 10 February 2018

We are very pleased to present the fourth solo exhibition by the Swiss artist couple wiedemann/mettler in our gallery. Since 2002 Pascale Wiedemann and Daniel Mettler work together on a thoughtful oeuvre, in which they relate photographs, films, sculptures and objects to each other. In their exhibition they surprise again and again with inventive images and scenic sets.

The title of the show Stage is programmatic: The exhibition turns into a stage and the stage into an exhibition. Regarding this observationwiedemann/mettler comment the following: „In the early 20th century the illusionistic stage started to be regarded by many directors as outworn. Therefore trials started to integrate the auditorium into the scenic conception. This lead to new to new forms regarding the stage and new emanation of the space.“ These considerations for the play had during Modernism a certain impact on the visual arts. wiedemann/mettler follow this route and devise their exhibition as a walk-in installation to which each spectator reacts differently. The first space is defined by a large curtain stretching across the complete opposite wall of the shopping windows. On the curtain two sunsets at the sea are depicted. This doubling is striking and requires from the public a constant reorientation. The curtain covers nearly completely the opening to the main gallery space only on the far left a passage is kept open. In front of the curtain stands an over two meters high shape, knotted into a metallic system. The multi-legged structure lends to the black work an organic, slightly scary but at the same time humorous character.

Different forms of expression alternate in the main room. On the wall hang two photographs and two large velvet cushions. On the floor stand two sculptures. The photographs are based on several images, which were taken during a sojourn in New York this autumn. wiedemann/mettler pasted and composed the two photographs on the computer screen from many pictures to reveal two multi-layered landscapes, which allow different ways of reading as they possess many transparent levels. Similar to the viewing of the two sunsets on the curtain these photographs of landscape provoke a feeling of displacement by the viewer. The titles of the photographs America 1 and 2 indicate their origin – a country, which through their current president is in a state of constant reorientation. Both upholstered velvet cushions, Coloured Recollections 2 and 3, are putting colorful notions of remembrance into the exhibition and can be regarded as landscape painting with other means. Two sculptures in the space are a counterbalance to the works on the wall. Ordnung 1 (Order 1) consists of a metallic system and cushions, growing out of the system from goat’s skin. The work alludes to minimal sculpture but also to furniture of daily use. A flagpole with an upholstered Yves Saint Laurent foulard, Mercy 2, carries the colors of Coloured Recollections 3 into the room.

wiedemann/mettler devise in their precise and dense exhibition a landscape of emotions, resonating in the impressions and individual reactions of the particular beholder.

For further information and images please contact the Lullin + Ferrari, gallery Limmatstrasse 214, 8005 Zurich, t. +41 43 205 26 07, [email protected], www.lullinferrari.com
opening hours: Tue - Fri, 12 to 6pm, Sat, 11am – 5pm and by appointment