Swiss-re

ART AT SWISS RE NEXT

PHOTOS: FR ANÇOIS HAL ARD TEX T: DOMINIKUS MÜLLER

A R T AT S W I S S R E N E X T

INDIVIDUAL PREFERENCES OFTEN VARY GREATLY, PARTICULARLY IN ART. BUT WE CAN LIVE WITH A KIND OF RESISTANCE AND DIFFERENT OPINIONS, AND WE EVEN WANT TO.

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THE ART OF COLLABORATION Swiss Re Next is a new office building. It is the company’s new headquarters in Zurich. A place where people work, meet, think and succeed. Swiss Re Next functions, everything operates nicely, makes sense, and has a purpose. But what is the purpose of Swiss Re Next? Is an office more than a space, where people work? Is it just desks, coffee machines, meeting rooms?

and materials that tie into the architectural structure, such as textiles, wall paintings or light objects. The development has been special as all commissioned art was advanced in close collaboration between the architects, the artists and the team of Swiss Re – some of them over five years or more. The enjoyable team spirit, ample time as well as plenty of curiosity and interest for each other’s way of thinking facilitated a very holistic approach to art at Swiss Re Next.

Swiss Re Next is definitely much more than an office, more than a building.

Swiss Re Next is a mindset, a vision, a composition. Thanks to its stunning location at Lake Zurich, its remarkable architecture and outstanding art. Thanks to its novel workspace concept and fine design – but most importantly thanks to the many people who have invested lots of energy, creativity and passion into turning cement, steel and glass into an extraordinary place.

Commissioned art in this form and density was also new for us at Swiss Re. While we already have around 25 commissioned art projects across Swiss Re buildings around the world, complemented by our renowned corporate art collection with 4,000 works, Swiss Re Next has been different. With respect to its art concepts, the creation and development by the artists has been as inspiring as its diligent implementation by capable craftsmen on the actual construction site.

A place that is inviting, inspiring, fascinating. A building that moves hearts and minds. A space where people are moved while moving around, where they meet and explore new views wherever they are, whatever they do. Where they spend a lot of time, enjoy working, like to be – as every aspect and angle unveils new perspectives.

Now one sees the final results in the building. However, the journey and progress over years, the thinking as well as the faces behind the completed artworks as well as their charming stories are very worthwhile exploring. That’s why we decided to document the manifold endeavours that came together nicely, and stimulate employees, business partners, and visitors alike. Every individual piece of art is unique. However, as a whole, in dialogue with each other, in dialogue with the impressive architecture, new dimensions evolved which are delightful. In Swiss Re Next, architecture and art play together in such meaningful dialogue, thanks to many colleagues, the architects and artists as well as dedicated support teams.

Art plays a vital role in this context.

The dimensions of Swiss Re Next’s architecture were craving for art concepts that complement and stimulate the wide space. That’s why we chose art projects that motivate dialogue between art and architecture while blurring the boundaries of one another. We selected formats

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First and foremost we’d like to thank Jörg Schwarzburg, Architect and Project Leader from Diener & Diener, for managing the interface of architecture and art along the entire process, guiding the artists, teams and ourselves with passion and pragmatism along the way. I’d like to thank Swiss Re’s Chairman of the Board, Walter B. Kielholz, and Thomas Wellauer, Group Chief Operating Officer, as well as the entire Art Commission for their trust, stamina and guidance, bringing our aspiration to life, as well as the Group Executive Committee for supporting the vision of art at Swiss Re Next. A great compliment and lots of appreciation go to Christof Keller and his team, who have been responsible for building Swiss Re Next, keeping on their toes day and night over recent years.

The passion and the inspiration spill over now to colleagues, who work at Swiss Re Next and who bring this building and its workspace concept to life. And thus, the journey continues, as details of art at Swiss Re Next are interpreted by individuals and get explored and integrated in their everyday working lives. I hope that our projects provoke fascinating debates, offer fresh perspectives and create identity and identification.

Anne Keller Dubach Head Art & Cultural Engagement

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WHILE ART PERFORMS VARIOUS ROLES IN A BUILDING, ABOVE ALL IT SHOULD CREATE AESTHETIC FIELDS OF TENSION.

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utilizing a potentially massively higher building volume. We wanted to offer a variety of modern office spaces for individual and shared use as well as different meeting rooms and lounge areas.

SWISS RE NEXT: REFLECTIONS ON ARCHITECTURE AND ART Walter B. Kielholz and Roger Diener in dialogue A few weeks prior to the opening of the company’s new headquarters building in Zurich, Swiss Re’s Chairman of the Board, Walter B. Kielholz, and Roger Diener from Diener & Diener in Basel, architect of Swiss Re Next, met in Zurich to reflect on recent years: from the idea of a new building to its completion in September 2017. They talk about the vision at the beginning, challenges during the process and the intention of the architecture and complementing art concepts. The dialogue also offers insights into the broader historical context, the demand of such a noteworthy location and the company’s future workspace model.

Roger Diener: For us as architects, this was one of the most significant requirements: creating the best possible working conditions for employees, for collaborating and communicating with each other. Our remit also specified a high degree of architectural flexibility as well as quality standards so the building would serve its purpose also in 30 years’ time and beyond. You may remember, we called it functional sustainability. Another important objective was to create a building that would be respected as the flagship site of Swiss Re. Considering the stunning location, the lake and the remarkable neighbourhood, I was convinced that creating a very open and truly transparent structure would fit best.

Walter B. Kielholz: In 2009, when we met for the first time, all we had in mind was the ultimate objective to build a new office block for Swiss Re’s headquarters in Zurich. The old building had been ageing and suffered from structural weaknesses. To renovate it would have required a lot of money, and, with just 400 people working there at the time, the cost-benefit ratio was rather suboptimal. So we started to make plans for a new building: at the same location at Mythenquai, but designed in a way that could accommodate the majority of our employees in Switzerland – moving 2,500 colleagues from Adliswil to Zurich. In turn, this called for a very different concept, one that would enable a much more flexible workspace model while meeting specific operational criteria

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Walter B. Kielholz: Since you have been talking about the lake and the waterfront, allow me a brief excursion into history. The redesign of the waterfront in the 19th century was a real transformation – suddenly Zurich had a high-class urban grandeur just like that of Geneva.

With our new building we also wanted to pay tribute to that aspiration. Our aim was to somewhat replicate the confident style of the Gründerzeit (mid to late 19th century) and translate it into current realities: with a light and bright six-storey building on a large scale. Inside, we wanted open-plan, flexible workspaces – by the way, open-plan offices are not an invention of our time. Even in 1913, when the headquarters of Swiss Re was opened in Zurich, it had huge open-plan offices.

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thus the “outside” world. At the same time, “inside” we think, calculate, consider; we often carry out scientific work together.

To me, this kind of dialogue of “inside” and “outside” seems to have been reflected very well in Swiss Re Next, from various different perspectives. Our objective was to create a special place for customers and employees alike offering a platform to dialogue; a building that would be both, modern and inviting, while also being flexible enough to allow us to adopt new, evolving ways of working, now as much as in 10 or 20 years’ time.

Up to 50 or 60 people used to work there, standing at tall desks and turning pages of enormous ledgers. Of course, the ledgers have all gone now, and today almost everything is done digitally but the open space offices are coming back.

Things have gone full circle.

Roger Diener: You are right. For us architects, Swiss Re Next was also a question of going beyond the immediate purpose and function of the building; we wanted to create a synthesis between the urban architectural style of the waterfront and the rural area around the lower end of Lake Zurich. We wanted the building to be like a membrane: a thin film that vibrates. Most certainly, the very different, and sometimes intense light conditions allow the appearance of the building to constantly change – yet it always remains transparent, airy, blending into its surroundings, whatever the time of day, the weather or the season.

In addition, Swiss Re Next is not a strident building. It is restrained in scale, both inside and out, both for people passing by and for those working here.

Roger Diener: Dialogue was certainly a key concept for us, too. Over the last few years, communication and collaboration has become a key theme in designing Swiss Re Next, yet again in dialogue with you as the client.

That’s how we arrived at some interesting, and in some cases extremely original, solutions. To give just one example: we decided not to have a big, anonymous entrance hall like an airport hotel. Instead, we wanted a more differentiated structure, but one which would nevertheless remain recognizable and perceptible throughout, a common pulse beating on all six storeys. That’s why we created atriums and a prominent, mostly very wide staircase, making sure all the workstations receive natural light. Our idea was that everything should flow smoothly together and yet be on an individual scale: work, conversations, discussions in the so-called “Think Tank” cubes, coffee at the bar.

Walter B. Kielholz: Yes, “inside” and “outside” is a highly relevant angle: that relationship is indeed particularly important here, not only in the architectural and aesthetic sense – on account of the building’s prominent position on the lakeside – but also in relation to our work. As a reinsurance company, Swiss Re is in constant close contact with world events,

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Walter B. Kielholz: And, as a matter of fact, the coffee turns out to be very good. Kidding aside, the intention of transparency and lighting has come through very well. Let’s also not forget the art, Roger. The art makes a huge difference in this building. You know that art is very important to us, not least as a design element in an existing structure.

While art performs various roles in a building, above all it should create aesthetic fields of tension. Especially creating something outstanding of such high quality and being able to work with artists who aren’t necessarily world-famous was fantastic. And you may remember, we very early on realized that the vast spatial dimensions of the architecture were ultimately craving for artworks.

Walter B. Kielholz: Maybe I should add something quite fundamental here: art has a long tradition in our company. Our collection as well as the commissioned art pieces from around the entire world are an important expression of our corporate culture and identity. Having said so, of course individual preferences often vary greatly, particularly in art. But we can live with a kind of resistance and different opinions, and we even want to. After all, we intend to provoke debate – in this area as well as in others. When it comes to art, we have gained a lot of experience over the decades, so I suppose we were pretty well prepared for the exciting endeavour of Swiss Re Next.

For Swiss Re Next, we chose a broad spectrum of approaches, media and materials, for example textiles, curtains, carpets, tables, stained glass, wall paintings, light installations, sculptures and even a sgraffito (engraved plasterwork) extending over several storeys. These artworks were realized in close consultation with the artists, and our collaboration on particular projects has often extended over four, five or even six years. We engaged national and international artists, both younger practitioners and famous artists who already had made their name.

And, I’m truly intrigued by the result; it is varied and, above all, extremely expressive.

Our employees are flexible in deciding where to work, they will always explore something new, gain fresh perspectives, and experience a surprising sense of change. I’m convinced that the art at Swiss Re Next will contribute to the dynamism which no doubt is a feature of our time. And to support such a dynamic working culture, we also designed the multifaceted working areas as huge open spaces.

Roger Diener: Of course, that prospect fascinated us as architects – the idea of being able to work with very talented artists right from the start, in a very collaborative way, side by side, also ensuring that their works had the chance to develop identity, a presence and central importance. When designing a building that size, it obviously presents many attractive perspectives, depending on the setting and perspective, the height and the dimensions of the rooms.

While respecting the basic rhythm of the building, in the interior we set out to create diversity which in hindsight was the right thing to do; we created a perfect platform for the artists and their commissioned works. But we achieved this together; honestly, I have rarely experienced such creative meetings and intensive discussions – both with the Swiss Re representatives as well as the artists.

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Roger Diener: I agree, time played an important role. We took our time. Swiss Re Next is the outcome of ten years of very valuable dialogue. I’m convinced that big projects require time to be successful.

There are no ready-made solutions.

And, in addition, I think we almost always managed to find a common language; for me, that was perhaps the most rewarding experience. And thus we were able to create something big together.

Roger Diener: By the way, we have also seen this with other companies.

When spaces are open but well structured, the long-term job satisfaction increases.

Of course, people have to have sufficient opportunities not only for talking to one another, but also for concentrated work.

In general, permanently assigned desks seem less and less in tune with our needs as global nomads, which to me is not a surprise; however, it means we basically have to redefine an efficient and environmentally acceptable way of using space in general. Needless to say in this context that we meet the highest environmental standards with Swiss Re Next.

Walter B. Kielholz: Looking back and reflecting, taking a decision of such magnitude back in 2009 definitely took a certain amount of courage. And, for sure, courage and confidence were essential throughout the entire process.

However, we have always been certain that this project and its realization were for the long term, as defined as key objective at the outset. And, no doubt, Swiss Re Next is a very rewarding manifesto of our courage, collaboration and stamina.

Thank you, Roger.

Walter B. Kielholz: Obviously, in that regard we don’t make any compromises.

Looking back, I’m actually very positive that we also didn’t make compromises in lead times. We planned in sufficient time for all aspects mentioned: the architecture, the interior design, the artwork. We had time for ideas and concepts to come together, for things to mature, to come to life. Take, for example, the remarkable stained glass by Kerstin Brätsch: designing it was an exciting process but actually producing it was no less challenging.

The artistic implementation was realized by working closely with true craftspeople, who barely exist any more – these windows reflect the very opposite of modernday haste and transience. Or think about Martin Boyce, who, over the course of the project, designed the whole entrance area, including the reception desk and the furniture, or Helmut Federle, who actually has only been focusing on smaller artworks in recent years; for our new building he returned to working on a larger space.

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PREFACE INTRODUCTION IMPRESSIONS 3–5

6 – 10

15 – 78

MARTIN BOYCE KERSTIN BRÄTSCH VALENTIN CARRON MARC CAMILLE CHAIMOWICZ MAI-THU PERRET WILLEM DE ROOIJ HELMUT FEDERLE WADE GUYTON & KELLEY WALKER PHILIPPE PARRENO HEIMO ZOBERNIG 83 – 107

109 – 129

131 – 153

175 – 192

193 – 211

213 – 233

235 – 255

257 – 275

277 – 297

INDEX 12

13

300

155 – 173

ART AT SWISS RE NEXT IMPRESSIONS

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WE WANTED THE BUILDING TO BE LIKE A MEMBRANE: A THIN FILM THAT VIBRATES.

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Concrete trees by Martin Boyce in front of Swiss Re Next

View of reception area with concrete trees, floor and reception desk by Martin Boyce

Waiting area with floor, concrete tree and furniture by Martin Boyce and artwork by Scott Myles

Employee lounge with concrete trees, floor and tables designed by Martin Boyce and chairs by BBPR. In the back: an artwork by Jonathan Monk

Impressions from the employee lounge designed by Martin Boyce

Sgrafitto by Kerstin Brätsch/Ivano Rampa at the south-west atrium

Glass brushstrokes by Kerstin Brätsch placed in the windows of the south-west atrium

Skylight by Kerstin Brätsch in the corridor connecting Swiss Re Next with Altbau

Glass window by Kerstin Brätsch at the entrance to the corridor connecting Swiss Re Next with Altbau

Auditorium with Helmut Federle’s painting The Enormous Room including partitioned LED panels

Foyer in front of the Auditorium with works by Valentin Carron

North-east atrium with sunlight choreography by Philippe Parreno and a bench by Martin Boyce

Think Tank with a curtain by Mai-Thu Perret and, in the back, curtains by Willem de Rooij

Curtain with collaborative design by Marc Camille Chaimowicz and Mai-Thu Perret

Curtains by Mai-Thu Perret for the Think Tanks

Meeting rooms with curtain by Willem de Rooij

Client area on the sixth floor of Swiss Re Next with coffee bar by Heimo Zobernig in collaboration with Norbert Steiner, wall painting by Heimo Zobernig

Business lounge in client area on sixth floor of Swiss Re Next with a rug by Guyton\Walker

Library on sixth floor of Swiss Re Next with rug and tables by Guyton\Walker and wall painting by Heimo Zobernig

Client area on the sixth floor of Swiss Re Next with wall painting by Heimo Zobernig and rug by Guyton\Walker (left); client area with rug by Guyton\Walker and curtain by Willem de Rooij (right)

ART AT SWISS RE NEXT THE ARTISTS

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MARTIN BOYCE

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An artwork by Martin Boyce at the artist’s home in Glasgow

A R T AT S W I S S R E N E X T / M A R T I N B O Y C E

In Zurich, Boyce’s work spreads through much of the entrance area, beginning outside the door with a geometric pattern in aggregate-enriched asphalt around angular and angled concrete columns. And inside, in the reception and the surrounding areas, the stone floor bears a similarly regular, jaggedly geometrical pattern. The columns are also repeated here.

However angular and visibly “man-made” these cast concrete elements may be, they also look undeniably organic, recalling petrified tree trunks.

The overall result really is a landscape. And although it is obviously constructed and abstract, it adds up to a picture of nature, connecting interior and exterior. “The idea,” Boyce says, “is for it to look as if the entire building had been erected on top of a park or garden with a geometric layout.” Interestingly, the lakeside site where Swiss Re Next stands really is “artificial”, an area reclaimed from the lake over a century ago.

The lines and patterns on the floor derive primarily from another historical frame of reference that plays an important part in Boyce’s work more generally. In 2005, the artist happened upon a blackand-white photograph of concrete trees designed in the 1920s by the brothers Jan and Joël Martel for the garden area of an exhibition of modernist design in Paris.

Concrete trees! For Boyce, with his interest in the interface between nature and culture, what could be better? Fascinated by these sculptures, he broke down their formal idiom into a specific vocabulary, a system of elements and patterns resulting

THE LANDSCAPE MODE Martin Boyce masterfully layers nature and culture, what grows and what’s built. He crafts spaces and generates atmospheres, both abstractly artificial and unreally natural. At Swiss Re Next, Boyce worked on the entrance area, transforming it into a kind of park where inside and outside meet.

For most people, the word landscape suggests nature: meadows, forests, mountains and lakes, or the sea. Above all, however, a landscape is an imagined whole: nature becomes a picture, conceived of as an aesthetic ensemble. Which in turn makes it an expression of how we want nature to be: sometimes rough and unfamiliar, then quaint and inviting, but always as an all-embracing atmosphere, as a striking impression.

Landscape is another word for the mirror of our soul.

When talking about his art, Martin Boyce, too, often speaks of landscape, referring to the intersection between culture and nature inherent to the concept: “I’m interested in the idea of a controlled nature,” he says, “a landscape, like you find in parks and gardens.

Here, nature is combined with an element of architecture, you have to decide where to plant each tree and where the lake should be. That is fascinating.”

This interest in an overlapping between “the natural and the man-made” is found in many works by the Scottish artist who won the Turner Prize in 2011.

And it is also reflected in his project for Swiss Re Next.

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between inside and out, neither one nor the other, but both at the same time.

The unusual reception desk that Boyce has designed for the lobby fits with this special atmosphere. Made out of a single piece of pale marble, it dominates the space, like a meteorite that has fallen to earth, dynamic and alien, fascinating and mysterious. “The reception desk looks like it came here from the future or from some remote past,” enthuses the normally sober-seeming Boyce. “As an object, it has an extraordinary energy.”

Compared with the reception desk, the small ventilation grilles that Boyce has set into the walls look like a minor detail. But in an understated way, “All the Gravity, All the Air” comes into its own again here.

Unlike the constructions in concrete, stone and marble, the grilles bring a lightness into the space. A fresh breeze seems to flow from them. In fact, the buildding does not need such ventilation openings; Swiss Re Next is built to the latest environmental standards and breathes through its ceilings.

“In our imagination,” Boyce explains, “ventilation grilles always act as places of exchange and connection.” A draft wafts through this place, then, linking the various levels, the visible and the invisible, the present and the past, in a subtle and elegant way. And even if they lead nowhere and are purely decorative, these ventilation grilles open up a different space, the space of the imagination.

Speaking to Boyce, it soon becomes clear that he is a visual thinker. Pictures

from the use of particular angles. Later he even used the lines to create a typeface, which was used to inscribe the name of the work on the columns at Swiss Re Next: “All the Gravity, All the Air”.

Modernist design has always been an important point of reference for Boyce. He has worked with it repeatedly, extracting specific elements or quoting entire designs, including works by Jean Prouvé or Arne Jacobsen. “When I began working with design elements, I was much interested in the corresponding ideologies and the impact of time and culture on these ideologies,” says Boyce. In other words: in what, after the end of modernism, remained of its dream of the all-encompassing organization and design of life, society and nature. In recent years, however, this more analytical approach has given way to other interests. Asked about the Martel trees, he says: “Nowadays, it doesn’t matter to me whether people know where the forms are from. They’ve become an established part of my own visual language.

I just use them.”

Instead, Boyce now aims “to create specific atmospheres and moods”.

And he adds: “The materials and the forms should speak for themselves.” Rather than making art that discusses a given subject, art that is “about” something, the work should transport a particular feeling.

And in a discrete way, the spaces at Swiss Re Next feel enchanted. The individual elements combine to make a striking scene, edgy and angular but also light and slightly detached: a transitional space

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are accessed via moods, they function as a whole and atmospherically. Like a landscape. Regardless if indoors or out, designing and arranging a space means one thing above all: conveying moods.

So it is not difficult to complete the picture in your mind and to imagine something like the wind blowing leaves across the floor of the reception area.

The benches Boyce designed for the waiting room only add to this effect.

Their curved shapes and elegant wooden slats make them look like taken from a park. Combined with classic circular side tables, they create a setting that deliberately obeys two logics at the same time: culture and nature, indoors and out.

“It’s a landscape that’s become entangled in another,” says Boyce. Among other things, this allows the place to communicate a certain openness. And where is such an openness more appropriate than in the lobby of a building? Such areas are like an airlock or sluice that links the interior and the exterior, guiding the flow of people both inwards and outwards.

Finally, Boyce gives viewers and visitors the possibility to decide which of the two sides they wish to see. Inside? Outside?

Or even: both at once.

The Scottish artist MARTIN BOYCE, born 1967, lives and works in Glasgow, UK. In 2011, he won the Turner Prize, one of the most prestigious awards for contemporary art, with an installation recalling a park in autumn. Exhibitions include: Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2015), and Tramway, Glasgow (2012). In 2009, Boyce represented Scotland at the Venice Biennale.

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Martin Boyce’s bookshelf at his home in Glasgow

Martin Boyce in his studio in Glasgow

Photograph of concrete tree by Jan and Joël Martel at Martin Boyce’s home

Models of Martin Boyce’s contribution for Swiss Re Next as well as inspiration and photographs at his studio

“I’m interested in the idea of a controlled nature, a landscape, like you find in parks and gardens. Here, nature is combined with an element of architecture.”

MA RTIN B OYCE

Martin Boyce testing one of his benches for the Swiss Re Next entrance area at Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen

Moulding of bench frames at Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen

Sand-cast moulds for bench frames

“I want to create specific atmospheres and moods.

The materials and the forms should speak for themselves.�

MA RTIN B OYCE

Working on the reception desk at Schmitt Natursteinwerk in Herisau, Appenzell

A R T AT S W I S S R E N E X T

KERSTIN BRÄTSCH

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Kerstin Brätsch with a single glass piece in front of a template for her skylight at Glas Mäder, Zurich

A R T AT S W I S S R E N E X T / K E R S T I N B R ÄT S C H

PAINTING IN SPIRIT Kerstin Brätsch breaks painting down into its constituent parts and puts it back together again. She examines her medium, sometimes analytically, sometimes playfully; sometimes alone, but mostly in cooperation with others. For Swiss Re Next, she has created several windows.

And she has appropriated an old craft technique to create an impressive sgraffito that extends the full height of the atrium.

lighting, in addition to the daylight coming in through an opaque skylight. “Like a synthetic night sky full of stars,” says Brätsch, “but also the technical reality of the window. I didn’t want to hide that.”

In spite of its apparent downward pull, the glass also offers a view in the opposite direction.

Brätsch gave this skylight the title Stargate. And it really does feel like a portal to another world: futuristic high-tech and mythical cult object from the past in equal measure – and thus, quite contemporary in a way. Like the other window at the start of the passage, Stargate is based on one of Brätsch’s series of Mylar Paintings. For each of these works, the artist arranges three transparent polyester sheets painted with oils in a row. This creates a three-layered picture hat can be combined in various ways, asserting itself in the space at the same time as giving a free view of the background. Just like the windows into which she has now translated the two paintings with the help of the Zurich glass painter Urs Rickenbach, with whom she has been working closely since 2010.

Brätsch is a painter. And the way she paints is very much in tune with her times. She takes the venerable, time-honoured artistic medium and fits it for the present. Rather than avoiding the pressure exerted on such an “analogue” activity by digital imaging technologies, she actually heightens it. She addresses the myth of the painter as a lone genius, a myth that looks surprisingly old in an age of networks, decentralized

Kerstin Brätsch refers to the two windows she has realized for Swiss Re Next as “glass beings”. Overall, three of the four elements of her project are works in glass: a large window in the old building (Altbau) where the passage to Swiss Re Next begins; a skylight in this passage; and glass inserts in the atrium, spread over the various levels.

In both the window in the Altbau, where everything starts, and in the skylight, one can identify brightly coloured, somewhat fragmented faces: slightly displaced eyes here, the suggestion of a mouth there. In the skylight, this glass being seems to succumb to gravity, almost dripping out of its aluminium frame.

As if it bore memories of other states within it. The nature of glass: solidified matter that was once liquid and that can become so again.

Elsewhere, Brätsch stresses the transparency of her material. Then, the window really is a window. Through the skylight, one can look into the space opening up below: one sees a large number of lamps, installed to ensure uniform

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“clouds” and co-working. In a nutshell: she faces up to the crises of painting.

And she finds solutions.

Brätsch breaks painting down into its constituent parts. Again and again, she puts her own works to the test, something she considers an essential part of her practice. She presents her painting in “tanning beds” under hard, brutal neon light: the opposite of the “good light that painting always seeks to appear in”, as she says. Then her paintings are dragged through the dirt in processions and literally buried. They must survive all this if they are to pass the test.

In this process, Brätsch doesn’t even spare the smallest unit of painting, the individual brushstroke. At Swiss Re Next, the shimmering brushstrokes in which multiple colours blend are also translated into glass. Six of these brushstrokes, hugely enlarged, grace the windows looking onto the south-west atrium. But even without this translation into glass, the technique in question is a distancing gesture: this so-called “onestroke technique” involves assembling different paints on a broad brush, allowing her to apply several colours in a single stroke. The result is a ready-made gradation of colour, itself referring to light.

Which is just one step away from a translation into glass.

There’s no such thing as the one brushstroke, says this technique, there are always multiple strokes; no such thing as origin or originality, rather a multiple identity. Every colour is already a gradation and every gesture is a translation. Which doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be taken seriously in terms of expression. On the contrary. But it is the expression of a polymorphic present, and no longer that of an authentic individual.

As a logical complement to her questioning of painting, Brätsch also breaks down the proud figure of the painter into a plethora of different roles and joint projects. With such undertakings, including DAS INSTITUT, which she runs with Berlin artist Adele Röder, and KAYA, for which she has joined forces with New York artist Debo Eilers and a teenage girl called Kaya, the daughter of a childhood friend of Eilers’, Brätsch melts “the painter” down like a lump of glass. Precisely in such cooperation with others, her work comes into its own.

The same applies to the craftspeople whose skills Brätsch often calls on, like the marbler Dirk Lange or the abovementioned glass painter. In such cases, she pushes painting towards traditional craft techniques. “I’m also interested in upholding forgotten knowledge,” she says, “knowledge that’s in danger of not being passed on.” In such cases she works with the craftsperson as her extended hand, as she puts it. The idea is to blur boundaries: “The craftsperson moves towards the figure of the artist and the artist towards the craftsperson. You can only develop a new way of seeing if you move away from your own position.” Finally, it is the switching between roles that affords the necessary freedom of movement. Both sides then surpass themselves.

At Swiss Re Next, Brätsch worked not only with Urs Rickenbach, but also with another craftsman, the restorer Ivano Rampa from the canton of Grisons. This allowed her to use sgraffito for the first time, an ancient plaster scratching technique that is especially widespread in the Grisons.

It involves applying layers of plaster and then scratching parts away again to achieve the desired result. Across the north side of the atrium, the full height and width

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certain and positive about what you do.

“Painting is timeless,” Brätsch says. “It will always exist.”

of the wall, covering an area of 23 by 13 metres, there is now a subtle line drawing scratched into the plaster.

Looking closely at the sgraffito, it is possible to spot the shape of the frame of the window in Altbau. Standing alone like this, it becomes a kind of mask, an abstract face. “My contribution as a whole,” says Brätsch, “should feel as if the glass window from Altbau had been set free in the atrium. And the individual brushstrokes now find themselves as scattered fragments in the space.

The frame, on the other hand, is cast onto the wall as a kind of silhouette.” This sgraffito is a good example of superimposed skills and styles, of working with a craftsperson “as an extension of her hand”, as Brätsch likes to call it. “For the frame of the window in Altbau, I made a drawing by hand. Of course, the frame had to be structurally checked before being cast in aluminium. And the AD drawing with all the necessary modifications served as a template for the sgraffito.” The drawing then was projected onto the wall, where Ivano Rampa traced it. “You can feel his hand,” Brätsch says, “he has a very distinctive stroke.”

Ultimately, however, it is not so important whether Brätsch’s approach to painting is down to earth or verging on the spiritual, whether she plays with it ironically and mischievously, whether she searches with analytical rigor for arthistorical references, or whether she moves her medium closer to craft trades.

What’s important – in spite of, or perhaps precisely because of her someimes ruthless approach – is something else.

And it is also what gives an undertaking as diverse as Brätsch’s redefinition of painting, a project that does without safety nets, its inner cohesion: being

The Hamburg-born artist KERSTIN BRÄTSCH lives and works in New York. In the summer of 2017, a major show entitled Innovation at Museum Brandhorst, Munich, brought together her various collaborative projects for the first time.

Other exhibitions include: Serpentine Galleries, London (2016, as DAS INSTITUT), Kunsthalle Zürich (2011, with Adele Röder) and Kölnischer Kunstverein (2011, as Kerstin Brätsch & DAS INSTITUT), as well as contributions to the Whitney Biennale (2017, with Debo Eilers as KAYA) and Venice Biennale (2011, as Kerstin Brätsch & DAS INSTITUT).

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Kerstin Brätsch at Glas Mäder, Zurich, in front of a template for her skylight

Sketch for Kerstin Brätsch’s skylight

Production of frame for Brätsch’s skylight at Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen

At the workshop of Glas Mäder, Zurich

“Working with craft is a lot about upholding a forgotten knowledge that’s in danger of not being passed on.”

K E R S T I N B R ÄT S C H

Kerstin Brätsch during the realization of her sgraffito at the south-west atrium at Swiss Re Next

“You can only develop a new way of seeing if you move away from your own position.”

K E R S T I N B R ÄT S C H

“Painting is timeless.

It will always exist.”

K E R S T I N B R ÄT S C H

Kerstin Brätsch’s sgraffito at Swiss Re Next’s south-west atrium with (left) and without (right) scaffolding

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VALENTIN CARRON

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Valentin Carron at his studio in Martigny with a Piaggio Ciao moped

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It looks like an abstract work of art, until you notice the snake heads with their almost cheeky expressions. One protrudes out of the foyer into the corridor, greeting anyone coming in, and the other bends down elegantly to a bench, offering its services as a kind of armrest.

Subtlety and ambiguity are typical qualities of Carron’s art: things are often not what they initially seem. Beginning with the way Carron tends to work with found materials: he takes other artworks, craft objects or architectural elements, imitating, translating and reworking them. In some cases, these source materials are copied one to one, in others they are modified, in others still merely quoted as a recognizable style.

He cites artworks that grace the traffic roundabouts in his home town of Martigny in the Swiss canton of Valais (pop.18,000), where he grew up and where he returned to after his art studies in Sion and Lausanne. Or he makes sculptures in the style of Alberto Giacometti’s long-legged, ascetically modernist figures, except that in his version the dignified striding humans become golfers with clubs in their hands.

When Carron represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale in 2013, his show included lovingly restored Piaggio Ciao mopeds. The two-headed snake also featured in Venice. And it comes as no surprise that it, too, is not Carron’s invention. Its head is cast from an art deco grille at the head office of Zurich’s Fire Police. Carron usually finds inspiration in his immediate surroundings, the place

THE ART OF IMITATION Valentin Carron imitates, be it public sculptures or modernist church windows.

And he manipulates, be it the old promises of modernism or the craft traditions of rural Switzerland. For the foyer outside the auditorium at Swiss Re Next, Carron has made two artworks with a big symbolic impact: a sculpture in the form of a two-headed snake and wall objects that allude to church windows.

The relationship between humans and snakes is a difficult one. Their near soundlessness, their stony gaze and their tongue flickering trigger deep-seated fears, especially from a Western perspective shaped by Christianity and its myth of the expulsion from Paradise.

In other cultural milieus, however, snakes have been admired throughout history: for their elegance, for their wisdom and intelligence, and not least for a certain subtlety and discrete humour. So when the artist Valentin Carron is installing a long, elegant wrought-iron snake in the foyer outside the auditorium at Swiss Re Next, winding its way in gentle curves around the high-ceilinged space, he is referring to the fact that things often have two sides, that they can be ambiguous and multifaceted.

It is fitting, then, that Carron’s snake has two heads, one at each end of its elongated body. “I see it as a Janus figure,” says Carron. “But the two heads are so far apart, you no longer identify it as such.” And he’s right. At first, you perceive it as a long curved line in the space.

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where he lives and works. He takes these materials, putting them to new uses and giving them new interpretations.

He makes derivatives of derivatives, turning kitsch back into art.

Carron’s main concern is often “Swissness” and the role played by objects loaded with meaning in generating a feeling of national belonging. Such works feature prototypical emblems or symbols of Switzerland: clocks, summit crosses, or handcrafts like a large bear carved out of wood. But Carron replicates these things in synthetic materials like polystyrene. In this way, while clearly marking them as “fakes” that have been deliberately imitated, his approach also reveals the tradition to which they belong as something made and imagined.

While Switzerland likes to think of itself as idyllic and picturesquely natural, Carron sees the spoiled valleys of the Valais.

Where rustic handcrafts and authentic rural life are at home, Carron finds deliberate fabrication of tradition for reasons of social cohesion. He is interested in artificial things that look natural, and in invented things that pretend to have been there the whole time. There is no pure and authentic tradition, Carron’s work tells us, but only the artificial, which is made and synthesized but which, when done well, feels flawless. In the same sense, there is also no original creativity, but only constant translation, permanent borrowing, reshaping and developing. Carron calls this “the manipulation of tradition”.

The second group of works Carron has created for Swiss Re Next also involves such a “manipulation of tradition”. At first glance, the 23 flat objects arranged high up on the wall distantly resemble abstract painting. In fact, however, they are replicas of modernist church windows. The originals have been reconstructed using, among other materials, splinters of glass and acrylic paint, the concrete has been convincingly imitated with filling compound. Carron saw the originals from a train window while travelling from Vevey to Lausanne. He has already used such abstract windows composed of glass fragments in several other works. This technique, known as “dalle de verre” and developed as early as the 1930s, was especially popular in the immediate post-war period.

For Carron, these windows bring together many themes: they stand for the promise of modernism and of abstraction, including some transcendental and religious undertones.

But they also stand for the generalization, popularization and, finally, devaluation of this lofty vision. “It’s a second-hand past,” says Carron, “not Picasso, but a version of modernism you find in town halls, civic centres and small-town churches: taken off its pedestal and passed down into everyday life and the provinces.

Where it can be put to good use.”

Precisely this blunting of onceladen symbolisms is what Carron finds interesting. Such church windows, such “abstract art”, are found everywhere, and people don’t usually pay them much

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attention. With a certain sadness but also with biting humour, Carron seems to be telling us: there’s no salvation and we’re left with this radical secularization, this rigorous worldliness. There’s no longer anything behind these windows, they no longer lead anywhere. Behind these windows is a wall.

Carron is far from lamenting this loss of meaning, as one might assume.

That is not his point. But he also doesn’t seek to hide or conceal it. On the contrary, by replicating these windows with different, “synthetic” materials, he basically subjects them to a further devaluation. But if one really engages with the work, at precisely this moment something astonishing is happening: Carron’s overdrawing makes it possible to see these objects for what they are – derivatives, replicas, not originals.

Paradoxically, this “fake” strategy used so skilfully by Carron exhibits a certain realism. Acknowledging the facts and looking with open eyes at what lies in plain view may be painful. It takes courage. Because it involves admitting that things are not always what they claim to be. But such a step also offers a great opportunity: to recognize these things as themselves, as objects of this world. And this, finally, gives them back a dignity all of their own which they wouldn’t have if they were still being measured against the noble ideals on which they were once modelled.

Swiss artist VALENTIN CARRON, born 1977, lives and works in Martigny. In 2013 he represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale, filling the airy pavilion with pieces including restored Piaggio mopeds and a long wrought-iron snake, similar to the one at Swiss Re Next.

Other exhibitions include: Kunsthalle Bern (2014), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2010), La Conservera Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Murcia (2009), and Kunsthalle Zürich (2007).

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At Valentin Carron’s studio in Martigny

Inspirations including sketchbook at Valentin Carron‘s studio

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“I’m interested in a second-hand past: not in Picasso, but in a version of modernism you find in town halls, civic centres and small-town churches – taken off its pedestal and passed down into everyday life and the provinces.

Where it can be put to good use.”

VA LEN T I N C A R R O N

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Forging of Valentin Carron’s snake sculpture for Swiss Re Next at Glaser Schlosserei & Schmiede in Binningen

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MARC CAMILLE CHAIMOWICZ

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Marc Camille Chaimowicz in his exhibition An Autumn Lexicon (2016) at Serpentine Galleries, London

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PATTERN RECOGNITION Since the early 1970s, Marc Camille Chaimowicz has been blurring the lines between private and public, the self and its images, between art and design, yesterday and today. In the process, he has created an elegant and stylish oeuvre that resists categorization.

For Swiss Re Next, he worked with Mai-Thu Perret on curtains for the Think Tanks on the office storeys.

of chests of drawers, wallpaper, textiles, shelves or chairs may seem to be closed off and shielded from the noise of the world, but time and its passing are there as intimations. Chaimowicz is discrete, and he’s elegant. He’s a master of concealed allusion. And this is what makes his work so appealing.

Although he was born in post-war Paris, the artist soon moved with his parents to England where he grew up and studied. He was socialized by the glam and pop of the early 1970s and it was then that his career began in London.

In his new Anglo-American setting, continental Europe maintained its hold on him, making itself felt throughout his work: a memory that was wonderful, but also slightly sad.

“The French think I have an English sensibility, and the English think I have a French sensibility,” says Chaimowicz, who now divides his time between London and Burgundy. For him, identity is articulated as a mixture, not least of what one is and what one wishes to be; of where one’s from and where one’s going. This may also be at the root of his taste for blurring the borders and his vision of art as an art of living. More than most other artists, Chaimowicz has become one with his work – while always remaining someone else.

Early on, he concentrated on process-oriented environments. His installation Celebration? Realife (1972) was like walking into a party that has just finished: the floor is strewn with all kinds of stuff left behind by the guests,

The biographical details in Marc Camille Chaimowicz’ CV often read something like this: “Born in post-war Paris.” Which already tells us a great deal about this artist and his work.

For one thing, it is a charming way of saying he would rather not state his age: an understated rejection of the data imperative and of supposedly objective reality.

But it also names a time and a place that bear within themselves a specific feeling, evoking an era. Or at least images of an era: the end of a classically European civilization; distant memories of the belle époque and slightly less distant ones of the avant-gardes; and a war that brought unprecedented horrors, that interrupted everything and divided history into before and after.

But all of this is merely hinted at in the often pastel shades of Chaimowicz’ work with its supposedly bourgeois virtue of “furnishing” or “decorating”. The breath of history is felt in the spaces he designs, but it doesn’t get caught, passing airily through these works that often recall interiors and dwellings. His arrangements

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For Swiss Re Next, it is thus appropriate that Chaimowicz should have joined forces with Mai-Thu Perret to create curtains. Each contributed four designs that were then made in different colours and hung in different combinations on the various floors. The two artists were involved in every step. Chaimowicz’ designs, titled Zürich, Monaco, London and Paris, are unmistakably his: precise forms, sometimes curved, elegant and round, sometimes meandering and shimmering; sometimes pointed and triangular, elsewhere clearly floral with a look of reeds – discrete but colourful, precise but lively.

“Atmosphere” is the first thing he pays attention to when he enters a room, says Chaimowicz. Atmosphere – this means the way things add up to an overall picture, and above all: how this overall picture feels.

And the same applies to these curtains. The way they contrast with their surroundings, thus complementing them, reflects a sensibility for the whole. The two artists are a perfect match here: Chaimowicz with his emphasis on mood and Perret whose approach is more conceptual.

“A curtain,” says Chaimowicz, “is a filter between the self and the outside world, an interface between the private and the public.” His curtains are installed in the Think Tanks on the office floors, free-standing glass boxes in the middle of the space that are designed for meetings and concentrated work. The curtains play with the notion of transparency, being more or less translucent. They create a focussed atmosphere and a little

a forlorn mirror ball hangs in the space, and a David Bowie record plays on the turntable. At the time, the artist moved into an adjacent room for the duration of the exhibition and was available for discussions.

In a way, Chaimowicz literally lived in his art. Or was he living beside it? Or with it?

Later, he made himself at home in his studio on Approach Road in East London, not only working there like his fellow artists in their studios, but also living there.

The boundaries blurred beyond recognition, and with them the spatial attributions. What is this? A studio or an apartment? A private space or a public one?

Over the years, how to furnish rooms, how to design and thus define them, giving them their character, became increasingly central to Chaimowicz’ work.

He made sculptures that recalled items of furniture and that could be used to fit out dreams: dramatically curved but unostentatious make-up tables, elegant bookshelves or tip-up seats, half chair, half divan, mostly in his signature pastel shades.

However much Chaimowicz’ interiors feel like capsules, detached from time and reality, echoes and reminiscences are constantly creeping in: of 19th-century Paris, of art deco, Jugendstil and the Arts and Crafts Movement as well as of figures from post-war cultures like the French artist Jean Cocteau or the writer Jean Genet.

The rooms appear to be inhabited by different characters and by different times.

But these inhabitants are merely hinted at, silhouettes behind a veil. Here, presence is a vague feeling, a hunch.

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intimacy for a small group within the open and flexible design of the offices.

Privacy and intimacy are key values for Chaimowicz. Consequently, rather than abolishing the border between private and public, the artist plays with it in a subtle way. What lies hidden behind the curtain is not dragged out into the light, even if his installations often feel like walking into a private space. Chaimowicz plays a subtle game of hide-and-seek: in this work, where it is openly presented, the private is also revealed as something staged. And such staged environments are perfect places to disappear in.

The way Chaimowicz plays with the roles of design and art is similarly intelligent, open and honest, but also subtle and enigmatic. Without making a hierarchical distinction, he has a clear idea of the difference between the two fields: “My work as an artist is founded on questions of identity. By definition, rather than providing answers, art asks questions.

Art opens up. Whereas design is all about answers. Design doesn’t question, it defines.” But in his next sentence, Chaimowicz turns the usual talk of “free” art and “applied” design on its head: “Design is anonymous in an interesting manner. Unlike art, design is not about ego. And in this sense,” he says, “design is autonomous in a good way.”

MARC CAMILLE CHAIMOWICZ, born in post-war Paris, lives and works in London and in Burgundy. He has been active as an artist since the early 1970s. In autumn 2016, London’s Serpentine Galleries hosted a major retrospective of his work. Other shows include: Halle für Kunst, Lüneburg (2014), Secession, Vienna (2009), and Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich (2005).

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Impressions from Marc Camille Chaimowicz’ exhibition An Autumn Lexicon (2016) at Serpentine Galleries, London

“The French think I have an English sensibility, and the English think I have a French sensibility.�

MARC CAMILLE CHAIMOWICZ

Chaimowicz with his fabric designs for Swiss Re Next, sitting on one of his artworks in his exhibition at Serpentine Galleries, London

Marc Camille Chaimowicz and Mai-Thu Perret during a meeting

One of Marc Camille Chaimowicz’ fabric designs for Swiss Re Next

Test hanging of a Chaimowicz curtain in one of the Think Tanks

Marc Camille Chaimowicz during test hangings of his curtains at Swiss Re Next

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MAI-THU PERRET

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Mai-Thu Perret holding one of her artworks

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and there are artworks. Woven pieces, for example, but above all ceramics. News of the secluded commune leaks out into the outside world; after all, the women have to earn money somehow, which they do by selling their handcrafts.

All of the ceramics and woven works were, of course, made by Perret herself, the story of The Crystal Frontier being entirely fictional. Perret also wrote all of the statements, manifestos and fragments of dialogue. The Crystal Frontier is a fascinating hybrid between storytelling and concept, part of Perret’s art but also a means to an end. It unfolds in the background, providing the artist with a framework, both for objects and diverse themes.

Here, she can articulate ideas that are often not accessible via artworks alone, for example the differences between art and craft and their respective roles in society. Although The Crystal Frontier is fiction, it allows Perret to tell stories that could actually have happened: in the milieu of the avant-gardes with their aim to reform life; in the counterculture, shaped by utopia, politics, and dropouts; or in the feminist movement of the 1960s and ’70s.

It is this openness that makes the work so lively. But it also means you never know exactly what does and what does not “belong” to the project, where the story begins and where it ends.

But this does mean it can be used flexibly. The Crystal Frontier is a smart tool, a design whose adaptability makes it intelligent, that can either retreat into

STORY LININGS Utopia and feminism, alternative lifestyles and storytelling, arts, crafts and the potential of the modernist avant-garde: the work of Mai-Thu Perret is many-sided and addresses many issues. For Swiss Re Next, she joined forces with Marc Camille Chaimowicz to design curtains for the Think Tanks on the office floors.

“I always wanted to be a writer,” says Mai-Thu Perret. And in the 1990s, the artist did study English literature at Cambridge. “But I soon realized,” she adds, “that I’m not good at building and sustaining a long arc of suspense.” On her return to Geneva, where she lives, she gradually switched to fine art. And in this context, which seems at first glance to have so little to do with words and texts, storytelling turned out to be the thing that worked for her. Because, as she explains, “you can use artworks as a kind of unit and moment in a larger narrative”. Over the years, she has developed her own distinctive way of writing and telling stories in the field of fine art, following her preference for narrative beyond the conventional literary forms of the novel or the short story.

In the late 1990s, Perret began work on the fragmentary narrative of a story set in a feminist commune, entitled The Crystal Frontier. Located in the desert of New Mexico, the commune is inhabited by women only. There is a spokeswoman who has written several manifestos, there are statements and discussions between the members of the commune,

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the background or be pushed to the fore, as needed. The story shimmers, like the crystal in the title. And it constantly shifts around: open and multi-shaped, profound and glittering.

For her contribution to Swiss Re Next, Perret has left narrative aside.

Nonetheless, the curtain fabrics she has designed to screen the Think Tanks on the open-plan office floors fit almost seamlessly into her oeuvre and its themes. Because these curtains, too, are immensely multilayered.

They can be seen as ordinary functional objects, used to temporarily close off the glass-walled Think Tanks.

But one can also concentrate specifically on their design.

Then, an entirely different dimension opens up behind the various graphic and ornamental patterns that are sometimes at odds with the clear architecture of the offices: a dimension of allusions and references.

For the curtain designs, Perret spontaneously joined forces with Marc Camille Chaimowicz. Both artists developed four basic patterns and translated these patterns into different colours. Perret and Chaimowicz then distributed the curtains in various combinations across the different Think Tanks. “It was fantastic to make these curtains with someone else,” Perret says. “It fits well with my rather loose approach to authorship.” And she adds: “After all, motifs and pictures don’t belong to anyone.”

Whereas Chaimowicz drew his designs himself, Perret based hers on found materials. As a result, her designs all

point somewhere else, into the history of the 20th century and its artistic and social movements, as well as into other cultural spheres. “My designs,” Perret says, “convey a certain variety.” The dot on one of the designs with its small compass marking thus recalls technical drawing, but it also alludes to the formal idiom of constructivism. The form on another design is based on an object Perret photographed in a shop in Istanbul among various tools, and the ornamental pattern on a third is from an Azerbaijani bedspread also purchased in Istanbul. The last design, an elegant rounded lozenge, is borrowed from the Dream Machine developed in the late 1950s by the painter and writer Brion Gysin.

What to do with these references and stories is for each viewer to decide for themselves. Perret is perfectly aware of this. “Of course, an object is primarily just an object,” she says.

“It doesn’t necessarily have to refer or be linked to anything.” Nonetheless, the curtains bring something into focus: various dimensions are woven together, external systems of reference meet with everyday usage. Stories and meanings are superimposed on objects, attached to the concrete forms. But all of this happens in a wonderfully loose and fragmentary way, almost casually.

In any case: “These curtains definitely exude a certain intimacy,” says Perret. “They bring a little living-room feeling into the office landscape.” In this way, they also enable a change of perspective, a different point of view.

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The curtains play with different levels of transparency; they can be closed in an instant, creating an intimate atmosphere that is conducive to small meetings; but they can be pulled aside again just as fast, opening up the spaces to the rest of the office.

Looking at the curtains as a whole, it is striking how well Chaimowicz and Perret complement each other. Their designs flow into each another almost organically, even if their approaches are different. Whereas Chaimowicz works more intuitively, in an atmospheric mode, Perret tends to be more intellectual, guided by conceptual thinking and narrative structures. Not for nothing does Chaimowicz say it was Perret who had a sense of “the big picture” in mind.

And there it is, the mental stamina required to think in large structures and overarching lines.

The Swiss artist MAI-THU PERRET, born 1976, lives and works in Geneva. In 2011, Perret’s major solo show The Adding Machine was shown at the Aargauer Kunsthaus and at Le Magasin in Grenoble. Further institutional solo shows: Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2016), MAMCO, Geneva (2011), and Aspen Art Museum (2009).

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At Mai-Thu Perret’s home in Geneva

Assorted books at the artist’s home

Fabric samples with patterns by Mai-Thu Perret for Swiss Re Next‘s Think Tanks at the artist’s home in Geneva

Various sketches and samples for Mai-Thu Perret’s Swiss Re Next curtains

“You can use artworks as a kind of unit and moment in a larger narrative.�

M A I -T H U P E R R E T

“Motifs and pictures don’t belong to anyone.”

M A I -T H U P E R R E T

“These curtains definitely exude a certain intimacy. They bring a little living-room feeling into the office landscape.”

M A I -T H U P E R R E T

Test hanging of one of Perret’s curtains in a Think Tank

A R T AT S W I S S R E N E X T

WILLEM DE ROOIJ

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Willem de Rooij with sheep in Brandenburg

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produced (or at least conceived) in this studio. For de Rooij’s works speak of a great precision, an eye for detail, and an austere clarity. But however controlled they may be in their execution, these works also have an inbuilt awareness that their effect on the viewer may be the exact opposite. Rather than clarity, they often exude an uncertain feeling of not quite knowing what one is dealing with. This is deliberate, without a doubt.

Paradoxical as it may sound, clarity and ambiguity are not mutually exclusive here, and neither are an abstract, intellectual approach and beauty that appeals to the senses. On the contrary, de Rooij’s work often deals precisely with this interplay between poles, with the way meaning is created from friction between opposites.

“Everything we do has to do with differences,” he says, “by which I mean differences in context.”

This dependence on context, the specific position of the viewer, and bringing together opposites also play a key role in de Rooij’s project for Swiss Re Next, which involved designing curtains along the inside of the whole of the glass outer wall of the five office floors. That corresponds to a width of almost 250 metres per floor.

De Rooij took advantage of this grand scale, designing his curtains in regard to the space as a whole. Subdivided into ten segments per wall, the colour changes gradually from corner to corner, from pale to dark. Overall, this gives each storey two pale and two dark corners, each pair facing each other diagonally across

LAYERED VIEWS Willem de Rooij is interested in paradoxes. He insists on clear positions, yet is always looking for shades and nuances.

He asks whether meaning is inherent in things, or whether it is attached from outside. For Swiss Re Next, he has designed curtains with a subtle colour gradient, going all the way around the office building on the inside of the glass facade.

Willem de Rooij’s studio in Berlin is empty. Really empty.

In the big rooms of the spacious old apartment there is little more than an elegant leather sofa. Through the double doors, a tidy desk is visible in the next room, and a few books. But nothing else. “I need a lot of space to walk around and develop my ideas,” he says. “I have a rather strange relationship with physical objects and materials. I try to have as little as possible to do with them.

And that’s reflected in my studio, of course.”

In an interview a few years ago, he stated that he owned a few artworks himself, which he loves, but that he is “very happy to have them packed away and to think about them instead”. And anyway, he added, he enjoys “looking at an empty wall very much”.

On a visit to de Rooij’s studio, his preference for a certain intellectual and conceptual definition of art becomes apparent: concentration and reduction, a considered approach rather than shooting from the hip; working with one’s head and not so much with one’s hands. And this impression rings true to the art that is

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the space, and because the material used is unbleached and undyed natural wool, the result is two grey-beige corners and two black-brown ones. “In the building, you don’t really notice the gradation itself,” says de Rooij. “You only see the part where you are at at any given moment. For the viewer, the curtain initially seems to be a single colour, until you move into another part of the space.”

How the curtain is perceived depends not only on the viewer, but also on other factors: daylight, for example, and lighting conditions. During the day, the coarsely woven fabric allows quite a good view of the outside: you can see the nearby lake and the city; but it’s hard to see in. At night the opposite is true: then the lights in the rooms make Swiss Re Next with its undulating glass facade look permeable. Viewed from outside, the warm tones of the curtains give the building a gentle shimmer, while offering those inside a certain sense of comfort. The curtain indeed is an integral part of the facade, presenting itself as a kind of “soft architecture”, as an element that is not rigid but flexible. And this brings the building alive.

The curtain, conceived as a whole and elegantly realized, thus allows for a certain functionality. And, of course, it is also simply beautiful, feels good to touch and is vital to the specific atmosphere of the extensive office floors.

But the colour gradient has another, hidden component that makes the curtain into something more, opening up an additional perspective. For de Rooij wouldn’t be

de Rooij if he hadn’t woven something else into the apparent frugality of this piece of soft furnishing, other connotations, other meanings – even if only in the form of a clue.

“In discussions and debates, I think it’s important to adopt a clear position,” he says. “But I’m always also looking for transitions and gradations. I am interested in nuances and how to make them visible. This two-sided approach probably explains why I’m interested in hard contrasts as much as in gradients and grey areas.”

In this light, the curtain’s simple design principle based on bringing together the extremes of dark and light, via a slow transition of grey tones, turns into something else. Now, what was a curtain made of undyed wool is, conceived in abstract terms, “dyed” with the principle of adopting a position. Adopt a clear stance or pay heed to the nuances? Be differentiated or be resolute? Isn’t it possible to do both?

It is a mark of de Rooij’s feel for subtle gestures and his skill in regulating different levels of meaning that such an additional layer of meaning is only hinted at. Ultimately, it’s up to each viewer to find such dimensions in the curtain and to fill them with specific personal meaning. The curtains can be opened and closed as their users see fit. But they can also be left alone.

Adopting a position always has to do with where one stands as a viewer and with the context in which one finds oneself.

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This kind of play on possible allusions and precisely calculated oscillation between explicit reference, specific material and its sociopolitical connotations is often found in de Rooij’s work. In the series that can be seen as the direct precursor to the Zurich curtain, his “Weavings”, de Rooij took exploration of the space between material and meaning to extremes. These textile wall objects mounted on stretchers, that have been woven on a centuries-old loom outside Berlin since 2009, feature gradations of colour similar to those at Swiss Re Next. It is tempting to view the “Weavings” as de Rooij’s version of painting, or as his engagement with the handmade.

But he rejects both these interpretations.

In the artist’s view, the “Weavings” are the series in his oeuvre that do not “stand for” this or that, for an engagement with any specific theme, but precisely for the absence of external references and interests. These works tell of the play of light and its dependence on where the viewer is standing. And, paradoxically, this means they represent the purely formal principle of presence in a specific space.

And it’s worth underlining this: they represent it, which means that they portray it depending on the specific context.

When viewed within such an abstract system of signs and attributions, a work of art is first and foremost a thing to which meanings adhere. And the artist is the person who defines these meanings with regard to the context, who attaches them, and who may also regulate their impact. And, in some cases, no meaning is also a meaning. Then, a picture emerges even if there is no picture on the wall.

The Dutch artist WILLEM DE ROOIJ, born 1969, lives and works in Berlin. Exhibitions include: Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2016), Le Consortium, Dijon (2015), Arnolfini, Bristol (2015), and Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2010). De Rooij is Professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt/Main since 2006, and Visiting Advisor at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam since 2016.

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“I am interested equally in hard contrasts and in gradients and grey areas.�

WILLEM D E R O O IJ

Willem de Rooij with weaving samples in his studio in Berlin

“Everything we do has to do with differences.

By which I mean differences in context.”

WILLEM D E R O O IJ

Weaving samples hanging at the windows of Willem de Rooij’s studio

Book at Willem de Rooij’s studio

“I have a rather strange relationship with physical objects and materials.

I try to have as little as possible to do with them.�

WILLEM D E R O O IJ

A R T AT S W I S S R E N E X T

HELMUT FEDERLE

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Helmut Federle, photographed by his gallerist Rosemarie Schwarzwälder

Helmut Federle at the Swiss Re Next Auditorium

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wooden walls. The artist stood in the middle and directed the execution of his meticulously planned painting.

The Enormous Room clearly reflects Federle’s signature style; it is an expression of his presence. The paint was applied in accordance with a specific dramaturgy: more or less intense, lighter or darker. Some areas of the wooden walls have been left untouched, others are densely covered. Different superimposed layers begin to shimmer, creating depth and rhythm.

On one side there is a remotely rectangular patch while on the other there are vigorously applied painterly brushstrokes that recall the precision and meditative concentration of calligraphy. And, finally, in the top back corner, there is a comment on the painterly principle, and maybe on the fact that Federle was less personally involved than usual in the actual realization of this painting: a large, dynamic horizontal brushstroke, but applied as a screen print. It is an enlarged copy of an element taken from a model of the room painted by Federle himself.

Federle has a keen interest in architecture and he has often worked with architects in the past. With Diener & Diener, the architects behind Swiss Re Next, he realized a firewall at the Swiss Embassy in Berlin. At the Novartis Campus Forum 3 in Basel, Federle was extensively involved in the design of the building and especially the facade. But he has never created anything like The Enormous Room: a walk-in painting, a spatialized abstract picture that surrounds the viewer.

“THE ENORMOUS ROOM” For Helmut Federle art is a matter of the utmost existential tension and a spiritual affair: an expression of the individual, a sign of inner unrest, a search for orientation. Federle’s abstract, geometric paintings are intensive and expressive, while also possessing the calm composure of a Zen garden. At Swiss Re Next, he has transformed the auditorium into a walk-in painting.

One of Helmut Federle’s favourite words is “climatic”. In an interview he stated: “Colour transports climate.” His painting of the auditorium at Swiss Re Next is meant to look “climatic rather than geometric”.

A “climate” (cold or warm, harsh or mild) is a statement, even when it is a matter of something as intangible and personal as moods and feelings. And for Federle, concrete positioning and individuality are important.

For him, this is a question of identity and deviation.

Federle’s work in the windowless auditorium at Swiss Re Next is called The Enormous Room. The title could hardly be more fitting. With its almost 6-metrehigh ceiling, measuring 11 by 21 metres, the auditorium is certainly enormous.

With a team of assistants, and with the help of the restorer Roland von Gunten, Federle painted it completely in shades of green and yellow that are familiar from his paintings. The yellow seems to give the whole room a warm, gentle glow.

The men used rollers, broad brushes and even repurposed mops to paint the

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This really does generate a specific mood, a special climate. Federle’s climate.

Born in 1944 in Solothurn, Switzerland, Federle is one of the great loners in the last 40 years of painting. Someone who cannot be assigned or even pinned down to a specific current. His work oscillates between opposite poles, between rigidly executed geometrical forms, rigor and control on the one hand, and, on the other, free painterly gestures, the tangible emotions and the depth of individual expression.

The two sides are held together above all by the artist himself. “I have a frequency within me,” says Federle, referring to the origins of his project for Swiss Re Next, “and the painting emanates from that frequency.”

For Federle, who represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale in 1997, painting (and art more generally) is an existential matter, something philosophical.

He is known for often working with the letters of his own name, especially the H and the F. In this way, he puts his life and his person into his pictures, literally.

His works are marked by great seriousness and huge concentration. As well as being expressive and precise, the pictures are also perfectly balanced, creating a sense of calm and composure.

Federle’s own life has been shaped by countless journeys and constant encounters with other cultures. It is the life of a seeker, never settled, always on the move. “Unrest,” he says, “is part of the magic.” In his early 20s, in 1967, he went to Tunis where he had his first exhibition and, among other things,

performed as a singer in a nightclub.

He later lived in the United States for some time. For some years now, he has felt attracted to East Asian cultures, especially that of Japan. Islam, the United States and Far Eastern philosophy: “These are the three major cultural influences in my life,” says the artist. “But they are far from homogenous. I can bring them together, but I can’t reconcile them.” If one views Federle’s works as direct expressions of such a divided existence, this explains the tensions in his pictures – and their tangible sense of a search for a centre and a balance.

As a painter and as a human being, Federle believes in the individual and in personal expression.

In this context, he is interested not least in a certain kind of intensity, an “upswing from ordinary being”, as he calls it.

And such an upswing and intensity are often found only in remoteness and in retreating from existing conventions.

Correspondingly, he says, he is drawn to people who act “as their own content”, people who put their own existential weight into their work and who are capable of creating this work from within themselves. One figure who plays an important role for Federle in this respect is the American poet E. E. Cummings, from whose autobiographical novel The Enormous Room (1922) his work for Swiss Re Next takes its title. In this book, Cummings, who was born into a wealthy family on the East Coast, gives a striking account of his internment in France during World War I.

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“I read Cummings’ poems as a young student in Basel,” says Federle, “and they made a deep impression on me.” In any case, he adds, many of his works can be understood as homages.

Besides Cummings, other projects have been devoted to the Bauhaus artist and colour theorist Johannes Itten, to the painter Josef Albers or the Swiss martial arts fighter Andy Hug. In the auditorium at Swiss Re Next, a sign refers explicitly to Cummings. The great ones are those “who have devoted their lives to something” says Federle. What he means by this is the radical firmness of the dedicated. But also something else: the almost existential devotion to a cause.

The Swiss artist HELMUT FEDERLE, born 1944, lives and works in Vienna and Camaiore, Italy. For the building extension of the Swiss Embassy in Berlin, completed in 2000, he created a geometric wall relief. Major solo shows include: Calouste Gulbenkian Museum, Lisbon (2017), Kunstmuseum Luzern (2012), Kunsthaus Bregenz (1999) and Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1992).

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A book by the US poet E. E. Cummings from Helmut Federle’s library. Federle named his Swiss Re Next project after Cummings’ novel The Enormous Room (1922)

Library of Galerie nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna

Various photographs: Helmut Federle with legendary Swiss artist Meret Oppenheim 1981 in Bern.

Shaker house at Mount Lebanon, New York, photographed by Federle 1997

Helmut Federle’s cats Jimmy and Zoltan, St. Margrethen, 1968

View of the Novartis Campus Forum 3 in Basel by Diener & Diener Architekten. Helmut Federle was closely involved in the concept and design of the building and especially its facade

Various impressions (clockwise): photograph of the facade of the Swiss Embassy extension building in Berlin, designed by Helmut Federle; Shaker furniture at Federle‘s studio; artwork by Helmut Federle; ceramics

Helmut Federle’s copy of Complete Poems 1913–1962 by the US poet E. E. Cummings

Pages from Helmut Federle’s notebook

During the realization of The Enormous Room at the Swiss Re Next Auditorium

“I have a frequency within me – and the painting emanates from that frequency.”

HELMUT FEDERLE

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Wade Guyton in his studio in Brooklyn, New York

Kelley Walker in front of a Guyton\Walker artwork

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PAINTING PROCESSED What is the essence of a picture or sculpture when everything can be translated into zeros and ones? And what is the meaning of authorship in the age of networking?

The work of Guyton\Walker, a joint project by the artists Wade Guyton and Kelley Walker, takes place against the backdrop of the digitization of almost all areas of life. At Swiss Re Next, Guyton\Walker has covered rugs and tables with many-layered, digitally processed motifs.

Guyton\Walker is deliberately playing with this kind of supposedly “digital” aesthetic. And Guyton\Walker (the project is always addressed in the singular, like a real artist) is also interested in making visible the processes and mechanisms behind this look, as well as in constantly translating between categories – and, more generally, in what it means today, in our thoroughly digitized world, to work with pictures and objects.

With digitization, pictures have become nomads. They are made primarily to be shared, sent and spread. And once a picture has been sent, it is rarely looked at again. Pictures wander around, they pass through channels, they are on the move.

And in the process they sometimes become attached to a screen, a sheet of paper or a canvas. Then they may find themselves in a book or projected onto a screen. Or on a rug and a table.

The work of Guyton\Walker thrives on such translatability between categories and on the detachment of pictures from their supports. Guyton\Walker uses computers to process images. As important and integral as it is to Guyton\ Walker’s practice, this screen-based work in the disembodied digital world is always a “transitional step”, as Guyton says: “In the work of Guyton\Walker, things materialize in a very physical way.”

Many things are imported using a scanner.

“Things are taken from the real world,” Guyton explains, “and fed into the computer, where they are then processed, shaped, and, finally, applied to a

Long stripes, some dark, some pale, line the rugs and the tops and bottoms of the tables. Between the stripes are colour gradients, places where the pattern seems to fade out; and distortions recalling jerky stopand-go motion, with erratic jumps and repetitions, while elsewhere the movements are smooth and flowing.

The patterns on the rugs and tables in the customer area at Swiss Re Next seem to have a look to them that could be termed “digital”. At least, these patterns seem to adhere to a specific aesthetic that has often been associated with the digital sphere in the years since the turn of the millennium: the colour gradients, for example, have the kind of smoothness that can only be achieved on a computer; and the pixel-like disturbances immediately recall a lowresolution image file. The stop-and-go and the repetitions, on the other hand, feel like something (a program onscreen, a sheet of paper in the printer) has “got stuck”.

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different material. The digital is a transitional space.”

Ultimately, in the constant translation back and forth, it is no longer possible to distinguish clearly where the individual elements come from, whether they were found online or scanned. On the empty canvas of the image-processing software Photoshop they are all treated the same, be it a page torn from a design magazine, a vodka advertisement, a zebra pattern, banana skins, scanned blood oranges or halved coconuts. Sometimes works by other artists are used, including a photograph by the Swiss artist duo Fischli/ Weiss. Even the standard chequered background from Photoshop finds its way into these compositions as a motif. The screen is a surface and everything that is displayed on it is literally on the same level.

In the end, Guyton\Walker prints out the result and the motifs find their way onto conventional canvases, onto paint tins, onto drywall panels, tables or mattresses. In some cases, they are even applied to the transport crates used to ship art works around the world. Today, when almost anything can be a picture, it is equally true that almost anything can be a picture support. Pictures circulate through various channels, attach themselves to supports, thus taking possession of them.

They superimpose themselves “like a skin”, as Walker puts it. And then they go their separate ways again.

It is thus entirely fitting that for Swiss Re Next, Guyton\Walker made rugs and tables: another support, another stage in this constantly mutating work as it takes possession of itself, consuming its own output, processing it and spitting it out again. “There is a basic visual vocabulary,” says Walker, “which gets reused and thrown together in new ways each time.”

The striped pattern on the rugs and tables, sometimes broken up by streaks resembling digital errors, is from the early period of Guyton\Walker in the mid2000s. “This image has been circulating through the work for a while,” says Guyton, “it shows a stripe we printed on a can of paint. We then put it on a scanner and then processed it again in Photoshop.”

The fact that this motif has now been woven by hand at a workshop in the Indian city of Jaipur, based on a digital file, almost literally one knot per pixel, is another step in this long and potentially endless sequence of processing steps.

And every translation, be it scanning and digital modification, printing and rescanning, or weaving a motif as a rug, leaves traces. And this is intentional: after all, these deviations and irritations provide the impetus for new forms, further mutations, different iterations.

The Guyton\Walker project itself, launched by Guyton and Walker while sharing a studio in New York in the 2000s, is also a kind of iteration and mutation.

Of course, this is a collaboration between two artists who are also highly successful in their own right. But for Guyton and Walker, this joint project they have been winding down for some time now, is more than that.

For one thing, Guyton\Walker is a third artistic identity, which is why the name is always addressed in the singular, as if it were a real person. For another, the two artists behind the project do not completely disappear as they would in an anonymous collective. On the contrary, not only are they present by name, but also with their different styles and working methods. It can also be looked at like this: Guyton\Walker’s insatiable appetite for processing images and the signs doesn’t

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In this light, the picture not only superimposes itself over the rug like a skin, but actually covers the architecture itself and its furnishings. It attaches itself to surfaces, whatever they may be. Viewed as a surface in this way, the building itself is a picture, at the same time as being a potential picture support. And the bird’s eye view Guyton mentions?

That would be the way things look on a computer screen.

spare the work and the identities of two artists called Wade Guyton and Kelley Walker.

As a result, the work of Guyton\ Walker features the black-and-white matrix dots and abstract graphical shapes that are familiar from Guyton’s work; and the bright colours and streaky forms that are familiar from Walker’s. Guyton contributes his conceptual thinking and his expertise in printing techniques, Walker his preference for appropriating images and working with the flatbed scanner.

“For us, Guyton\Walker was always a distinct artist,” says Guyton, “an artist whose interests have overlapped here and there over the years with what Kelley or myself are interested in. But because this artist is independent of us, Guyton\Walker has always been able to act differently and do things that would not have been possible in our individual practice.”

Guyton and Walker do not always work “for” Guyton\Walker together. “Once we have developed and established the shared vocabulary,” says Walker, “we often work on the project independently, according to what is possible and fits better.”

This is pragmatic, not unlike the nonchalant approach to pictures cultivated by Guyton\Walker. Pragmatic might also be the word for the way Guyton\Walker approached the additional design of tables in its concept. Once it was clear where the rugs would be positioned and where the tables were planned, Guyton\Walker simply cut out the pattern from the rugs and raised it slightly as a table. “I always dealt with the building from a bird’s eye view,” says Guyton. “I reduced it to a flat surface, viewing it in two dimensions.”

Looked at like this, a table is then a threedimensional raised section of a picture.

GUYTON\WALKER is a joint project by WADE GUYTON, born 1972, and KELLEY WALKER, born 1969.

Guyton\Walker lives and works in New York. Guyton and Walker, who are both also successful solo artists, created Guyton\ Walker in 2004 when they shared a studio in New York.

Exhibitions include: Kunsthaus Bregenz (2013), Baltimore Art Museum (2010) and Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna (2008). Guyton’s solo shows include: Museum Brandhorst, Munich (2016), La Consortium, Dijon (2016), and Kunsthalle Zürich (2013). Walker’s solo shows include: MAMCO, Geneva (2017), Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (2016), and Manchester Art Gallery (2012).

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View from the roof of Wade Guyton’s studio in Brooklyn, New York

“Things are taken from the real world and fed into the computer, where they are then processed, shaped, and, finally, applied to a different material. The digital is a transitional space.”

WA D E G U Y TO N

At Wade Guyton’s studio in Brooklyn, New York

Various photographs documenting a trip to Jaipur, India, where Guyton\Walker‘s rugs have been manufactured

Wade Guyton in New York

Kelley Walker with artwork

“Once we have developed and established the shared vocabulary, we often work on the project independently, according to what is possible and fits better.”

K ELLE Y WA LK ER Installation of Guyton\Walker’s rug at Swiss Re Next

A R T AT S W I S S R E N E X T

PHILIPPE PARRENO

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Philippe Parreno at his studio, Paris

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ballet, a fleeting, ephemeral play of light made possible through technology.

The heliostats start moving at a predefined moment, catching the light and sending it through the skylight into the atrium.

Then they turn away again and wait for their next cue.

But it is not only the technical realization of this delicate gesture that is elaborate and ingenious, but also the conceptual thinking behind it. Parreno is without a doubt one of the most fascinating artists of his generation.

His work is both highly technical and poetic, soulful and impressive, as well as being smart and intellectual, with a high degree of formal precision. Above all, however, it is often bafflingly ungraspable. This is mainly because Parreno is less interested in making objects or concrete pictures than he is in creating experiences and impressions.

And experiences are ephemeral, attached to moments and places, to specific constellations, and to our attention. For Parreno, making art means creating situations in which we can have experiences; it means finding forms for the ungraspable and the fleeting. And Parreno’s art conjures up this ephemeral quality, even if only for brief moments as in Zurich.

“This is my first art-in-architecture project,” says Parreno about his contribution to Swiss Re Next. “It is meant to contain the essence of my work. And, finally, that essence is the question: How does a form appear?” With such a question in mind, one soon arrives at the interplay of absence and presence,

SUN AND MIRROR Philippe Parreno works with experiences and impressions, playing skilfully on our senses. With great precision and technical know-how, he orchestrates situations that are both striking and ephemeral.

At Swiss Re Next, using no more than sunlight and a series of moving mirrors, the French artist has conjured a fascinating light ballet onto the walls and floors of one of the building’s atriums.

You have to be lucky to see Philippe Parreno’s contribution to Swiss Re Next, a discrete work that reveals itself only for brief instants.

If you are in the atrium at the north-east of the building during daylight hours, and if the sun happens to be shining, then you may spot a few fleeting points of light on the walls and floors. For short moments, the light flits through the space, tracing out elegant lines. Then it vanishes again, as if nothing had happened.

For all the ephemerality of the results, Parreno’s work is elaborate and ingenious in its realization. It involved installing ten heliostats on the roof of Swiss Re Next. Heliostats are mobile mirrors like those used in solar power stations: as automated devices, they follow the course of the sun; and they are capable of focussing light on a single spot regardless of the hour.

Parreno has appropriated this technology and put it to new ends. The heliostats at Swiss Re Next have been programmed to perform a choreography at specific intervals: an automatic

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the alternating game of “now you see it, now you don’t”. And of course this means to deal with light as the medium that causes things to appear in the first place. Light itself, though, remains ungraspable, showing itself only indirectly, by illuminating something else and causing things to “appear”.

As he has repeatedly stated, Parreno is fascinated and influenced by cinema, understood here as more than just films: as a device for projecting light. Cinema sets pictures in motion by switching between dark and light at fixed intervals: light on, light off, light on, and so forth. “Cinema is a magnificent machine,” says Parreno, “which is one reason why I’m interested in it.” In addition, he says, it is based on a “ghostly presence”, a “presence of what is absent”.

It thus makes sense that Parreno attributes a certain “cinematic” quality to his work in Zurich.

The interplay between presence and absence that characterizes the work as a whole applies to the periods between the choreographies when there is no light flitting across the walls of the atrium. Most of all, however, it applies with regard to days with clouds and bad weather. Or at night. Because the work depends on the sun shining.

“We analyzed the weather data for Zurich,” says the artist, “and the city usually has relatively clear skies. But there will definitely be days where there’s nothing to see.”

The artwork thus only appears under certain conditions, at a specific moment and in a specific place, and only when the

light conditions are right. With reference to the principle of anamorphosis (pictures that only become visible from a specific angle) the artist refers to his work for Swiss Re Next as an example of an “anamorphosis in time”. Meaning: “As well as having to stand in a particular position, you also have to be there at a specific time.”

“The work itself is incomplete,” Parreno adds. By which he means that it consists neither of the technical equipment on the roof, nor of the traces of light, but of all this coupled with a viewer at a specific time in a special place: “Only then does a public come into being.” It soon becomes clear that Parreno always has the bigger picture in mind: he is concerned with scenarios and connections, and he thinks of functions and dependencies. Everything is interconnected. Rather than individual works there are contexts; instead of objects there are choreographed situations.

In this context, the artist often refers to “quasi-objects”, a term borrowed from the French philosopher Michel Serres.

“A quasi-object,” Parreno explains, “is an incomplete form. Such forms are needed to build a community.” As an example, he names a football: “You put 22 people on a field and nothing happens. But if you add a football, then a game develops.”

And his work at Swiss Re Next can also be described as such a quasi-object.

It needs the sun, and it needs people in order to function. And both the sun and the people need the artwork in order to enter into this form of relationship.

In this light, the human viewer

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ceases to be the sole benchmark. Instead, automated procedures become more and more important, be it the programming of the heliostats or the cycles of nature: day and night, the seasons, periods of good and bad weather. But it would be wrong to see this as evidence of fatalism and to conclude that the human being no longer has a role to play here. Because the sun can shine all it likes and the heliostats can perform endless choreographies, but as long as there is no one to perceive the resulting play of light, to have an experience or just to be momentarily perplexed, there is also no work of art.

To think of this relationship as a twoway affair, and to perceive things in their totality, is central to Parreno’s art.

The human perspective is not negated here, even if this appears to be the case at first glance. But a certain levelling may indeed take place, with the viewer as one node in a larger whole, one player on a playing field that is also populated by other players: by the sun, the wind and the weather, for example, but also by technology with its new possibilities, and in more abstract terms by pictures and memories, stimuli and impressions. Fixed hierarchies between these various registers no longer exist. But there are new channels for communication. And great potential for new encounters.

French artist PHILIPPE PARRENO, born 1964, lives and works in Paris. His work includes the prominent film Zidane – A 21st Century Portrait (2006), a joint project with Douglas Gordon. The film shows the footballer ZinÊdine Zidane for a whole game in close-up. Exhibitions include: Tate Modern Turbine Hall (2016) and the Serpentine Galleries, London (2010), HangarBicocca, Milan (2015/2016), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013), and Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2012).

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Impressions from Philippe Parreno’s studio (clockwise): film still of Philippe Parreno’s and Douglas Gordon’s film Zidance – A 21st Century Portrait (2006) (upper left); the opening page of the book on the film (upper right); a light installation in the studio (lower right); a view of Turbine Hall, Tate Modern, London, where Parreno’s exhibition Anywhen took place in 2016 (lower left).

Models for Philippe Parreno’s project for Swiss Re Next

“My contribution to Swiss Re Next is meant to contain the essence of my work. And that essence is the question: How does a form appear?”

P H I L I P P E PA R R E N O

3D model of heliostats for the roof of Swiss Re Next, Philippe Parreno’s studio

Models for Philippe Parreno’s project for Swiss Re Next

Testing ground for heliostats at Lumena Tageslichtsysteme, Ohmstal, Lucerne

Installation of Philippe Parreno’s heliostats on the roof of Swiss Re Next

Philippe Parreno’s heliostats on the roof of Swiss Re Next

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HEIMO ZOBERNIG

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COLOUR AND CODE For Heimo Zobernig, the dividing lines between painting and installation, film, theatre, design and architecture are far from being obstacles; rather, they offer points of departure for a play on roles and expectations. What is this thing we usually call “art”? For Swiss Re Next, Zobernig has made a series of murals and designed a coffee bar.

Asked about the ambiguity and multiple meanings of his work, he gives a typical Zobernig answer: “Rather than in poetic blurring,” he explains soberly, he is “interested in a pragmatic approach that attempts to understand each object.

Because even if things cannot be rendered absolutely clear, one should nonetheless try to achieve this.” And he adds: “There’s always enough left over.”

Meaning: enough questions, enough ambiguity. According to one of the (paradoxical) golden rules governing Zobernig’s work, it always involves an earnest, almost studious form of precision, emphasizing consequence and honest interest, while the outcomes of this search for clarity almost always end up being ambiguous and subtly ironic.

The many facets of his oeuvre seem to result from what is essentially a rigorously down-to-earth and pragmatically clear programme.

This also applies to Zobernig’s projects for Swiss Re Next. The murals he has realized on two storeys explore the principle of monochromy in abstract painting. And here, too, the resulting artworks are the opposite of what one would expect. As so often in Zobernig’s work, the reason for this effect lies in a simple choice of material. The visibly striped walls are painted with “interference colours”: depending on the viewing angle, the paint suppresses specific wavelengths in the incident light, showing the corresponding complementary colour. Such an effect is achieved, for example, when a thin film of oil forms

When does a picture become “a painting”? When does applying colours become “painting”? And when does the person who applies paint to something become “an artist”? These are the kinds of questions raised by the work of Heimo Zobernig, questions of what constitutes art and what an artist actually is. Zobernig masterfully juggles various roles, switching from fine to applied art, constantly shifting the boundaries between art, craft, design and architecture, moving with apparent ease between the various media. Pinning him down to one single thing seems almost impossible.

Zobernig’s large-scale architectural elements and his table and shelving objects make it seem as if his oeuvre were focussing on spatial contexts and displays, examining the structures of exhibiting and showing. But then, the artist presents dry abstract painting that is seemingly entirely autonomous. In one moment, it looks like Zobernig seeks to blot out the artist’s ego by using serialism and automation, in the next, he suddenly appears naked with an almost exhibitionist obtrusiveness in his videos.

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pavilion at the Venice Biennale. In the true sense of the word, he had visitors to the pavilion “walk the boards”. But a picture or mural can also be understood as a kind of stage: as a screen for the viewer’s projections and imaginings.

It is deliberate, then, that at first glance, it is unclear if the walls at Swiss Re Next are abstract painting or an unfinished decorating job. Interference colours only achieve their full effect when the coat applied is very thin. Thus, a certain amount of streaking is inevitable. But instead of executing the murals himself, Zobernig commissioned a professional painter to do the job. Had he painted the wall himself, the streaks and lines would necessarily have been seen as artistic marks, as traces of painterly expression.

This way, it is the experience and expertise of a craftsman that determine the rhythm of the painting, thus tacitly counteracting the gesture of the artist. Once more, lines are blurred, categories and attributions shifted – this time, those of the fine artist and the commissioned craftsman. All of this can be logically and pragmatically deduced from the artist’s decision to use these particular paints.

This is not the first time Zobernig has worked with interference colours.

In 2015, at Galerie Bärbel Grässlin in Frankfurt, he showed a series of canvases painted with these colours, each one also featuring their respective chemical formula: painting about painting in which form becomes content and the paint itself becomes the subject. The untitled

on water: the surface begins to shimmer in all the colours of the rainbow.

This is exactly what happens at Swiss Re Next. Spread across various spaces, the different colours (magenta, indigo, turquoise, violet, blue and yellow) are applied to either a black or a white background, one colour per room. The colours look extreme: ungraspable, almost immaterial. Although it is always the same colours, they always look different.

Sometimes (on white) they almost completely disappear. Elsewhere (on black) they stand out boldly, gaudy and brash.

It is important to know that interference paints are not often used in abstract painting, where they are seen as not sufficiently serious, as a cheap effect. They are more commonly used decoratively, for example in car paint workshops. Categorizations like this are perfect material for Zobernig, an essential part of his play with roles and attributions. Again and again, he subverts the supposed standards of what one can or cannot do in art. Instead of the usual acrylic and oil paints, he often uses ordinary emulsion paint, swapping the painter’s brush for the decorator’s roller.

The fact that Zobernig studied set design at the beginning of his artistic career in Vienna still seems to inform his work. There is a kind of stepping back, as he often contents himself with building stages. In the case of his architectural interventions, furniture and room modifications, this is literally the case, as in 2015 when he added black casings to the ceiling and the floor of the Austrian

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similar kitchen element at the Pavillon Le Corbusier on the opposite bank of Lake Zurich, built in 1967 as the last realized design by the famous Swiss architect.

At Swiss Re Next, the bar also reflects the walls, adding to the fascination of the lighting effects. The walls and the furniture, the art and the architecture answer and reinforce one another – a Gesamtkunstwerk in which the dividing lines between applied and fine art, between painting and decorating, between sculpture and furniture making are blurred beyond recognition.

murals at Swiss Re Next can also be read as a statement on painting and on the history of monochromy. Their constant shimmering means they are anything but monochrome (consisting of one colour) although that is actually the case. Zobernig seems to be saying that the single, precise colour hue, on which the notion of monochromy is based, does not actually exist. Instead, everything is a question of the viewer’s position and of how the light falls.

Besides this dimension concerning art history and colour theory, however, the main emphasis at Swiss Re Next is on the spatial impact of the colours, on their sometimes disconcerting effect on the space. Just as the paintings depend on the incoming light, they radiate out into the rooms and bathe them in a highly unusual light. The walls, and with them the rooms, begin to shimmer, seeming either to dissolve or to claim an even stronger presence. The effect of the murals is almost like an architectural intervention – even if it is “only” a matter of choosing colours for the walls.

This is especially striking in the central room of the upper floor where, in addition to the bright blue mural, Zobernig has collaborated with the architect Norbert Steiner (with whom he has often worked on art-in-architecture projects) to design a coffee bar: an elongated, elegantly rounded stainless steel element suspended from the ceiling, plus an equipment cabinet. A place to meet and talk. Less obviously “art” than the murals, the bar highlights its utility value.

Floating just above floor level and seemingly defying the laws of gravity, the visibly heavy bar also has a shimmering and airy quality thanks to its polished surface. In formal terms, it responds to a

The Austrian artist HEIMO ZOBERNIG, born 1958, lives and works in Vienna. In 2015, he represented Austria at the Venice Biennale with a subtle, minimal spatial intervention: he installed a black ceiling and a black floor. Institutional solo shows include: Kunstmuseum Bregenz (2015), Kunsthaus Graz and Kunsthalle Zürich (both 2011).

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Heimo Zobernig and Norbert Steiner at Steiner’s office, Vienna

Heimo Zobernig at his studio with a model for his project for Swiss Re Next

Heimo Zobernig at work at his studio in Vienna

Painter Claude Bickel realizing one of Heimo Zobernig’s murals at Swiss Re Next

Heimo Zobernig in front of one of his murals at Swiss Re Next

“Rather than in poetic blurring, I am interested in a pragmatic approach that attempts to understand each object.

Because even if things cannot be rendered absolutely clear, one should nonetheless try to achieve this.�

HEIMO ZOBERNIG

INDEX

PUBLISHER

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Swiss Re Ltd Mythenquai 50/60 8022 Zurich Switzerland

ARTISTS

Martin Boyce Kerstin Brätsch Valentin Carron Marc Camille Chaimowicz Willem de Rooij Helmut Federle Wade Guyton\Kelley Walker Philippe Parreno Mai-Thu Perret Heimo Zobernig

PROJECT LEAD

Anne Keller Dubach, Swiss Re PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Group Communications, Swiss Re CONCEPT AND COORDINATION

Studio Achermann

ART CONCEPT

Beatrix Ruf

AUTHOR

Dominikus Müller

PROJECT CONSULTANT TRANSLATION

Nicholas Grindell

Jörg Schwarzburg, Diener & Diener Architekten

PHOTOGRAPHY

TEXTILE EXPERT

François Halard Pierluigi Macor: pp. 122 – 127 Jessica Backhaus: pp. 268 – 269 Elfie Semotan: 1997, pp. 216 – 217 Didier Piquer / Promote Shetland: p. 200 Jörg Schwarzburg: pp. 106, 249, 250

Michele Rondelli COLLABORATION WITH ARTISTS

Atelier VOX.A, Geneviève Capitanio and Florent Merminod Bartenbach GmbH, Helmut Guggenbichler Maler Claude Bickel and team Glas Mäder & Co. AG, Urs Rickenbach and team Kunstbetrieb Münchenstein AG, Julia Pfisterer, with Andreas Glaser and team Kunstgiesserei St. Gallen AG, Felix Lehner, Tim Büchel, Karl Rühle and team Rampa Restauri, Ivano Rampa and team Roland von Gunten and team SPUTNIC Architektur, Norbert Steiner Tischlerei Bereuter, Martin Bereuter and team

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Studio Achermann PROOFREADING

Lektorama

LITHOGRAPHY / PRINT / BINDING

Koesel Media, Koesel Print COPYRIGHT

© 2017 Swiss Re. All rights reserved.

ART COMMISSION SWISS RE

Walter B. Kielholz Christian Mumenthaler Thomas Wellauer Thomas W. Bechtler

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