Current exhibition - Edition March: «From Object to Ornament» Part I

Cordial invitation to the exhibition of the Edition March «From Object to Ornament»

With works by Daniel Karrer, Sarah Margnetti, Valentina Pini, Dan Walsh

Vernissage March 30, 2023, 5 to 8 pm.

Exhibition Duration March 30 - May 27, 2023

«From Object to Ornament» is a two part exhibition that explores the transformation of everyday items to purely aesthetic and formal image objects. Losing their original purpose and transforming to symbolic pieces these are still hefty cultural, political, social and aesthetic signifiers. Patterns, sculptures, forms, cars, spaces, body parts or remnants gain a repurposed visual materiality. The newly produced works offer a wide array of approaches to understand ornament as more than a mere formulation of surface.

The first iteration of the group show features four artists:
A series of lithographs by Daniel Karrer shows a car behind a fill layer of a bluish-green reverse glass painting. The car itself becomes a varied, printed ornament behind the painted structure. In another lithograph Karrer explores the edge of a table with a tablecloth full of ornamental structures dissolving into perspective.

Sarah Margnetti’s etchings explores the coexistence of body in space. It depicts fragments of bodies that loom up from or melt into architectural or interior decorative elements. The surrealist forms oscillate masterly between illusions and abstract forms featuring organic body shapes as formal architectonic structures.

Valentina Pini’s new works explore the life of remnant objects in two photogravures. Pini uses two color gradients transmitted from copper on paper to colorize a cuttlebone in the midst of a leafy forest. In the staged environment the elliptic object finds itself metamorphosed to a bird like sculpture.

Two new relief prints by Dan Walsh are highlighted alongside a selection of his renowned handmade artist’s books that function as pocket sized museums carrying miniature drawings and paintings. Walsh’s work seems unconcerned with the rivalry between abstraction and ornament. The work evokes textiles and ornaments with a very basic structure which, based on layers of color and imprint, become complex, achieving a deep dimension through refined combinations.

Part II of the exhibition will follow during Zurich Art Weekend featuring new works by Sonia Kacem and Not Vital.