Exhibition 2009

Last fall, Edition Patrick Frey published the extensive book about Christoph Hänsli's "Mortadella". Hänsli cut a mortadella into 166 slices and painted the front and back of each slice in exact size. His Mortadella project was preceded by the series of Salzstengeli and Bierstangen, consisting of 52 and 30 panels, respectively. In these three comprehensive series, the artist surprises us with the infinity of possible changes. Now Hänsli deals with disparate things and creates an "order of things" in his second exhibition at the Bob Gysin Gallery.

In his art, Christoph Hänsli collects and unites humble everyday things. He creates a portrait of objects by depicting them frontally and in their original size. With the withdrawal of his handwriting, he lets things speak in their own language. Hänsli presents the objects in pale light, thus showing each individual appearance as a moment of an atmospheric whole.

In his exhibition, the artist deals with several object areas and creates an "order of things." The juxtaposition creates references between the disparate things. The frontal views of ventilation shaft covers, for example, correspond in their formal arrangement with the depictions of archive boxes stacked on top of each other. And these in turn correlate in their colorfulness with the wallpaper of a recreated interior.

The network of analogies that emerges for the viewer reveals, upon prolonged contemplation, references to meaning beyond the material similarity. The isolated objects reflect in their special design the stylistic preferences of their time and convey to us an image of the typical of the time. As objects of daily use, the objects are also an expression of our fundamental attitudes towards the world.

The silent language of the objects is interrupted in the exhibition by two text panels. In bold, black letters are the declarations of love "TI VOGLIO" and "TI AMO PER SEMPRE". Since we cannot demand the fulfillment of these requests, these claims evaporate. The shrill text images fall silent with the surrounding world of things and become objects among objects.

Biography Christoph Hänsli