Urban Zellweger. Boards

Istituto Svizzero is pleased to present “Boards”, the first solo presentation by Urban Zellweger in Italy, which brings together a new series of works.
In the spaces of Istituto Svizzero, Milan, the young Swiss artist re-examines his current research. Among other works, it includes recent small paintings on wood.
The title of the exhibition evokes a certain sense of humour when asking the question, can an image be defined by its support?
The artist, who has so far been known to the public to have a fluid and unusual iconography, with this new series can perceive how he —with his attentive care for minute details—fits into a more complex pictorial tradition.
Subjects of his paintings and drawings are collages of monsters and narratives, and as a painter he is not naïve about them, his vocabulary is clear.
Unlike surrealists who maintained a constrained relationship with painting, Urban Zellweger does not feel any animosity toward his medium. The figures follow one another, his sets unfold, the perspectives are built but the painting has its own space.
If his formats are more customary to the ones produced in a workshop,his technique is dry, thus revealing the drawings. Oil painting allows him to produce “sticky” white backgrounds from which figures detach, in the same way as dreams origin from a blurry mist. The rigid wooden surfaces allow him to cut out more quickly and clearly an iconography. Colours regain their medieval two-dimensionality.
Two sculptures produced by Bernhard Hegglin trigger the idea that the support is an issue for the image; hanging on branches of what appears to be a metal tree, Urban’s drawings reveal their vulnerability. In great awareness of an offered suspended moment, the young artist does not hesitate to put his practice at risk in front of the world.
Urban Zellweger (b. 1991 in Zurich, Switzerland) lives and works in Zurich.
Recent solo exhibitions include: Grass Glue, Kunstverein Nürnberg, Nürnberg (2018); Guests, HardHat, Geneva (2018); Moves, Weiss Falk, Basel (2017); Throb, Pilar Corrias, London (2017); Where am I Reptile, Karma International, Los Angeles (2016); Tables and Landscapes, Shoot the Lobster, New York, USA (2016); Plymidae, Plymouth Rock, Zürich, Switzerland (2015); Karma International, Zürich, Switzerland (2015).
Recent group exhibitions include: Belgrade Biennale, Belgrade (2018); Geist Genf, Kunsthalle Palazzo Liestal, Basel (2018); Zum Jülichstübli, Jan Kaps, Cologne (2017); Americans 17, Luma Westbau, Zürich (2017); La Velocita delle Immagini, Istituto Svizzero, Rome (2016); 3 am eternal, Take That, Dallas (2016); 89plus: “Filter Bubble”, LUMA Westbau, Zürich (2016); SURREAL, Galerie König, Berlin, Germany (2016); Of Fauna and Flora, Tomorrow Gallery, New York, USA (2016); Apres Ski, Karma International, Los Angeles, USA (2016); Europe Europe, Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, Norway (2015); A Form is a Social Gatherer, Plymouth Rock, Zürich, Switzerland (2015); “+”, 1857, Oslo, Norway (2015); Barricades of Life, a Pool Outside, Kunsthalle Freiburg, Germany (2014); How do you solve a problem like Maria?, Nordstrasse 276, Zürich, Switzerland (2014); 50/50, Ok?, Kunsthof, Zürich, Switzerland (2014).
Bernhard Hegglin (b. 1989 in Zurich, Switzerland) lives and works in Zurich.

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