The art museum in Solothurn (Switzerland) is currently showing a solo exhibition by the Swiss artist Yves Netzhammer. The exhibition is entitled “Die Welt ist schön und so verschieden, eigentlich müssten wir uns alle lieben” (The world is beautiful and so different, we should all actually love each other) and is spread across the entire ground floor of the museum. There are seven room-filling works in seven halls.
Yves Netzhammer (*1970) grew up in Schaffhausen and now lives in Zurich. He has created a distinctive visual language and is one of the internationally best-known Swiss artists of his generation. Yves Netzhammer studied visual design at the ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts). From 1998 onwards, a lively exhibition activity began at home and abroad. Since 2014 he has also been realizing a wide variety of art and construction projects.
Yves Netzhammer: Die Welt ist schön und so verschieden, eigentlich müssten wir uns alle lieben / Kunstmuseum Solothurn. Solothurn (Switzerland), January 20, 2022.
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Exhibition text (excerpt, translated from German):
Netzhammer’s diverse practice is based on drawing, which plays an important role in the Solothurn collection. It builds on the long tradition of the medium as a surface for projection and reflection and brings it into the technological and socio-political present. True to the artist’s working method, this exhibition project was also created purely situationally. At the center of his Solothurn presentation are wall drawings, which are the setting for multimedia installations and, in the dramaturgical finale, advance to a room-filling panoramic representation. An associative network of images opens up in seven rooms, divided into poetic chapters, starting with “Leaves are questions of the air”. In the exhibition, the artist creates a framework around image, body, space and imagination in order to entangle us in a dialogue that is as sensual as it is intellectual.
In two new, animated drawing films, the line unfolds its inexhaustible potential: it mutates into an outline, a surface, a volume, a body – only to transform itself anew. The artist’s sign language thrives on the metamorphic and surreal: an iPhone emerges from a slice of bread, the human body becomes an animal body, the tender embrace becomes a painful entanglement. The reduction to the essentials enhances the impact of the figures; their stylization makes them ideal representatives for a wide variety of viewers. The artist’s visual world reflects reflections on art historical genres such as landscape, history or portrait painting, as well as changing collective and individual identities.
Netzhammer’s line is constantly changing, at the same time a connecting element and a fine line. He sharpens our senses for complex translation maneuvers that shape our perception and feeling today. It is a continuous transfer and scaling between different image technologies and spatial dimensions that the artist guides; a mediation between physical and virtual realities, between external and internal worlds, between individual and communal values. Again and again it’s about love and violence in the relationship between people, nature and technology, about everyday life and magic and about enduring ambivalence and contradictions – whereby the artist tests the language (in)ability of images in a world ruled by images leaves. The artist’s cosmos is not free of conflicts, but is fundamentally based on empathy: the world is beautiful and so different, we should all actually love each other.
Yves Netzhammer (*1970) grew up in Schaffhausen and now lives in Zurich. He has created a distinctive visual language and is one of the internationally best-known Swiss artists of his generation. Yves Netzhammer studied visual design at the ZHdK (Zurich University of the Arts). From 1998 onwards, a lively exhibition activity began at home and abroad. Since 2014 he has also been realizing a wide variety of art and construction projects (Prix Visarte 2015).
His solo exhibitions include Frankfurter Kunstverein (2019), FOSUN Foundation Shanghai (2017), MONA Tasmania (2013), Kunstmuseum Bern (2010), SFMOMA San Francisco (2008), Venice Biennale Swiss Pavilion (2007), Kunsthalle Bremen (2005 ), Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg and Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld (both 2003) as well as KW Kunste, Berlin (2000). His short films have been, among others, screened at the Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film (2015) and at the Venice Film Festival (2011). Netzhammer’s first feature film will celebrate its world premiere in January 2024 in the Tiger Competition of the renowned International Film Festival in Rotterdam.
His works have been included in group exhibitions, among others. on view at the Goethe-Institut, Paris (2018), Marta Herford (2017), Kiev Biennale (2015), Museum Rietberg, Zurich (2014), Arroniz Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City and K11, Shanghai (both 2013), The Museum of Modern Art, Toyama and Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (both 2012), Liverpool Biennale (2010), Palazzo Strozzi, Florence and Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (both 2007), Kunstmuseum Solothurn (2006 and 2001), Center Culturel Suisse, Paris ( 2003), Center for Art and Media Technology, Karlsruhe (2000) and Museum Ludwig, Cologne (1999).
In Switzerland, the artist most recently presented his works in the Museum zu Allergesundheiten, Schaffhausen (2018/19), in the Graphic Collection of the ETH Zurich (2020) and in the Haus Konström, Zurich (2022/23).
Netzhammer received notable awards, including: 1999 the Manor Art Prize Schaffhausen; In 2000, 2002 and 2006 the Federal Prize for Fine Art as well as international studio grants: in 2001 from the city of Zurich (for New York) and in 2005 from the Landis & Gyr cultural foundation (for London).
