Christoph Hänsli: Four Positions in PaintingGalerie Peter KilchmannRämistrasse Zürich
Galerie Peter Kilchmann is pleased to present the group exhibition Four Positions in Painting with Christoph Hänsli (*1963 in Zurich, where he lives and works).
In his figurative painting, Christoph Hänsli follows his interest in ephemeral moments and objects of everyday life we give little importance to. Through the detailed depiction of mundane objects, such as tea towels, notepads or a voltage generator, Hänsli portrays the rough edges of an unadorned reality. These are profane objects that are obviously present, but which we tend to repress from our perception or simply forget. By transferring them into the painted image they are charged with new meaning and a symbolic content. In the exhibition, Hänsli presents his new series Monde perdu, 2020 (see invitation card), which shows a collection of 19 paper scraps of notes the artist picked up in various sites, such as the street, public places or the supermarket. Each of the small-format paintings shows its subject on a scale of 1:1 to the actual piece of paper. The individual scraps of notes reveal words, letters, numbers, sentence fragments or excerpts from drawings taken out of context, which only vaguely reveal something about the message of the original piece of paper. In connection with another series in which he painted rusty screws, Hänsli once said he was fascinated by the fact that every screw which fell off was somehow missing. In a similar way, the remains of notes leave a gap while they become an enigmatic mosaic piece of their creator.
Christoph Hänsli's work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions since 1989. Past exhibitions have been presented in the following institutions, among others: Kunst(Zeug)Haus, Rapperswil (2021); Villa Renata, Basel (2020); Last Tango, Zurich (2019); Galerie Judin, Berlin (2018); Grand Palais, Bern (2016) and Helmhaus, Zurich (2012).
