Rémy Zaugg: Gesammelte Schriften

Rémy Zaugg Painter

Rémy Zaugg (1943-2005), born in Courgenay in the Swiss Jura, lived and worked in Basel and Mulhouse. He was - as he liked to emphasise - above all a painter. However, fundamental questions about the aesthetic and ethical justification of perception - in relation to pictures, later museums and exhibitions, architecture and the city - motivated him to write early on. His first major project was the cartographic translation of a reproduction of a Cézanne painting, which he undertook while still a student in the 1960s. It was an unusual form of translating synoptic pictorial perceptions and momentary observations into concepts and notations, and he did this in repeated attempts. This was followed by various co-operations for projects and joint texts with the ethnologist Jacques Hainard. After the large solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel in 1972, Rémy Zaugg recognised a great lack of understanding on the part of the public. He subsequently withdrew and began work on the extensive, previously unpublished 500-page manuscript "Du même à l'incertain" (1972-76; vol. 2: "Vom Selben zum Ungewissen") - an exciting examination of the implicit assumptions of conventional printmaking and the aim of deconstructing them; the publication "Die List der Unschuld", a comprehensive analysis of Donald Judd's "Six Steel Boxes" in the context of the Basel Kunstmuseum, was then closely linked to this text. Since then, Zaugg has continuously reflected in writing on his own painting projects as well as his artistic attitude and working practice. In the 1980s, questions about art in public space and museum architecture were added; in the 1990s, various collaborations with the architects Herzog & de Meuron offered the opportunity to engage with architecture both in writing and orally. In doing so, Zaugg's engagement with his counterparts always played an essential role: whether with the artworks of other artists (Cézanne, Judd, Giacometti), in his curatorial work for the artist Balthasar Burkhard, in his discussions with the writer and draughtsman Pierre Klossowski, the curator Jean-Christophe Ammann and the Geneva collector Jean-Paul Jungo. The form of the conversations, for example with Herzog & de Meuron, played with the change of roles: Zaugg was interviewed by them in the traditional way, but sought to talk to and meet the people with whom he also realised joint projects. In addition, Zaugg repeatedly chose the letter form to situate his reflections in communicative situations (to the museum directors Edy de Wilde, Suzanne Pagé or Dominique Bozo, the gallery owner Claes Nordenhake and others). Whatever textual form Rémy Zaugg chose, questions of painting, its propaedeutic function in shaping the world - in search of the unprejudiced existence of man - remained his defining theme.

Exhibitions:
Museum of Contemporary Art Siegen, 1/11/2015-6/3/2016
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 7/4-28/8/2016