Marius Lüscher: Untitled Paintings

Abstraction of abstraction

As Dieter Schwarz, former director of the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, writes in his accompanying essay, the abstract paintings by Marius Lüscher present us with a strange "order that appeals to no prior knowledge". At a height of 160 to 220 cm and in a vertical format, the paintings deny a landscape-like impression, just as they avoid any allusion to the human figure, for which this format was traditionally reserved. "There is no internal organisation of the picture surface reminiscent of anatomy, nor do the forms used form ensembles that invite the viewer to find themselves physically within them. Even the metaphor of architectural constructions does not apply." Rather, the identity of the painted surface and the picture plane dissolves, the forms stand on a neutral white ground with which they interact - transparency replaces opulence. "Marius Lüscher's painting has been constituted since 2010 from the possibilities inherited from this, which do not represent a stable but a variable quantity. Against the background of historical abstraction and the abstraction of the post-war period, the painter himself describes this work as 'abstraction of abstraction', because he does not seek to depict abstract painting as a historical fiction like Roy Lichtenstein, but rather tries to remain on the side of non-representational painting and to historicise it, to keep it alive as a real working possibility."