Iwan Schumacher, Peter Pfrunder «Paare / Couples», Jacqueline Burckhardt «My Commedia dell'Arte»
Dear Journalist
I am pleased to present to you our latest release Paare / Couples by Iwan Schumacher and Peter Pfrunder. The book was launched last week at the opening of the eponymous exhibition at Fotostiftung Schweiz in Winterthur.
We celebrate Jacqueline Burckhardt, who is awarded with this year's Swiss Grand Award for Art/ Prix Meret Oppenheim, and her recently published book My Commedia dell'Arte. Tomorrow, Saturday, 8 June, there'll be a talk at the Zurich Art Weekend and on Tuesday, 11 June, she will be signing copies of the book in Basel.
Furthermore, you can find us tomorrow, Saturday, 8 June, between 12 and 20h at Mini VOLUMES on the ramp of Löwenbräu Kunst Zürich. Come see us!
Would you like to receive a review copy of the books? I look forward to hearing back from you.
All my best,
Gloria
Press/Communication
New Release «Paare / Couples»
Back in 2013, Swiss filmmaker Iwan Schumacher began collecting photographs of couples who seem oblivious to the camera, either because they’re on familiar terms with the photographer or don’t even realize they’re being observed. Coincidentally, Peter Pfrunder, director of the Swiss Foundation for Photography, had long envisioned putting together an exhibition of photographs of couples. So it was only natural for the two of them to team up to produce a book.
The couples portrayed in Paare / Couples are of various types, durations and gender combinations. Each picture is complete unto itself and shows something happening between the two subjects; each sets a different film in motion in the viewer’s imagination, a before and after, which nevertheless remain a matter of delightful speculation – the mystery of the image remains forever veiled. Although Paare / Couples gives visible, almost palpable expression to a wide range of human emotions, the book doesn’t claim to show a photo-historically representative selection of people from all walks of life. It is, instead, a score gleefully and liberally composed by two photophiles, an eclectic assortment of stills that seem to be drawn from as many different motion pictures, but can be spliced together to form a new multi-threaded mosaic film.
The exhibition at Fotostiftung Schweiz in Winterthur is on view until 6 October 2024.
Jacqueline Burckhardt «My Commedia dell'Arte»
The new English edition of La mia commedia dell’arte (2022) is published in handy paperback format. It is complemented by a rediscovered letter from Ernst H. Gombrich and a text by Catherine and Tarcisius Schelbert, adding two more voices to those that speak of Jacqueline Burckhardt’s contribution to the field of art.
"Art is my oxygen. It is also an inexhaustible cornucopia across all times and disciplines."
Burckhardt’s life is art, approached from many angles: as a former restorer, as an art historian, as the early initiator of the performance program at the Kunsthaus Zürich, as co-editor of the art journal Parkett, as curator of site-specific art on the Novartis Campus in Basel, as a lecturer at the Accademia di architettura in Mendrisio, and as director of the summer academy at the Zentrum Paul Klee. Her cultural commitment also includes presiding over the Swiss Federal Art Commission for nine years.
Talk:
"Life is Art, Art is Life" - Jacqueline Burckhardt in conversatin with Ewa Hess
Saturday, 8 June 2024, 12.30-13.30h, schwarzescafé, Löwenbräu Kunst, Limmatstrasse 270, 8005 Zürich
Book signing:
Tuesday, 11 June 2024, 15-16h, Art Basel, do you read me?! x Kodoji Press Bookstore, Hall 1 South, Messeplatz, Entrance Design Miami/Basel