Simon Baur

R my Zaugg (1943-2005) was an internationally renowned artist who lived and worked in Basel and Mulhouse. He saw himself as a painter, yet he would not limit himself solely to the production of images. Rather, from his painterly practice he generated general assumptions for a processual conception of the work that enabled him to view spatial, architectural, and urban contexts in new, unfamiliar ways. Accordingly, the perceiving human being as a member of society was always at the center of his considerations - all his aesthetic assumptions led to the emancipatory idea of the becoming subject. In addition to his extensive painterly and written oeuvre, it is therefore his activities and projects for and in public space that are essential for understanding Zaugg's particular artistic position. The book is dedicated to this socially relevant complex of topics, documenting all of the artist's respective realized and unrealized projects, with a particular focus on the following key aspects of his work: museum architecture (here in particular his collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron), exhibitions with works by other artists, art in public spaces as well as his preoccupation.

Swiss artist Meret Oppenheim (1913–1985) is far more than just the creator of the iconic fur teacup. In the course of her career she produced a complex, wide-ranging, and enigmatic body of work that has no parallel in modern art. Like an x-ray beam, this book scans Oppenheim’s artistic oeuvre, bringing its variety, playfulness, and poetry to the fore. Instead of simply answering the riddles posed by these intriguing works, it maps out the paths that will lead us to still more clues. Simon Baur is a leading expert in the life and art of Meret Oppenheim. The nine new essays featured in this volume are at once scholarly and easy to read. In them, Baur shares the many fascinating insights and interpretations that he has gleaned from his decades-long engagement with Oppenheim’s work. The result is an anthology that combines both biographical and thematic aspects and takes us on an exciting journey into the poetic cosmos of a truly great female artist.

Annelies Strba (b. 1947) portrays the Blessed Mary not as the mother of God but as an ideal representative of her gender. The photo artist depicts an image of womanhood that elevates erstwhile religious intention to an abstract realm. Digital disengagement and the almost rhapsodic colouration set the stage for a surface on which to project emotions. Strba embraces the Madonnas, dismissing the transcendental and concentrating on the empathetic accent of the mother-child relationship. In choosing Maria, Strba creates the role of woman versed in pain and loss, but also one informed by purity and benevolence. Although these features were originally conceived in the composition and facial expression, the artist defamiliarises them through colour filters and the removal of contours - the dissipating figures lose themselves in their own luminosity.