Biographical Forms

6 June to 12 July 2025

Opening reception: Thursday, 5 June from 5 to 8pm

We are very happy to welcome you to the group exhibition Biographical Forms, in which we present works by six artists from our gallery program. The idea for this exhibition was inspired by Formas Biográficas, a 2014 show at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid. The connection between biography and artwork was already explored by Renaissance author Giorgio Vasari. The renowned Swiss curator Harald Szeemann investigated the concept of individual mythologies in the context of documenta 5 in Kassel in 1972.

The relationship between artistic work and the artist's biography is highly individual and can vary greatly. The work of Pierre Haubensak (*1935 in Brünig, Switzerland; lives in Zurich) is characterized by distinct series, in which he explores new painterly questions. At the beginning of his long artistic career, these stylistic shifts often coincided with changes in location. During the 1960s, Haubensak frequently stayed in Ibiza in addition to his adopted home Zurich and later lived until 1977 in a loft on Canal Street in New York. The painting Spagat and the work on paper Gate were created in Ibiza, while the other works on paper Crosslines and Manhattan Verticals were made in New York. These notes on unprinted newspaper contain references to Manhattan, whether in the dominant verticals of the skyscrapers or the colourful grid of the New York subway. In Nightwalk from 2017, Pierre Haubensak revisits earlier compositions from the Crosslines series, dissolving them through painterly means. The subtle late work Grisons bleus from 2020 demonstrates the full artistic freedom and mastery of Pierre Haubensak, who will soon celebrate his 90th birthday. To mark the occasion, a retrospective exhibition dedicated to him will open on June 19 at Fotostudio Frei (an early building by Herzog & de Meuron) in Weil am Rhein, accompanied by a publication with a text by Dieter Schwarz.

The Georgian-Swiss artist Koka Ramishvili (*1956, Tbilisi, Georgia; lives in Geneva) has recently focused more intensely on oil painting, alongside his photographic and installation work. In a series of small paintings – some of which are created without the use of a brush, using only the spreading of paint with fabric elements – he emanates dreamlike visual notes. Sometimes animals appear, often landscapes are discernible, as well as figures that seem to belong to another era. With the title This What Happened in the Burgundy House, Koka Ramishvili references the television series Twin Peaks by David Lynch and Mark Frost from the early 1990s.

Jamie Isenstein (*1975, Portland, Oregon US) created four new works specifically for this exhibition. The sculpture Onions (Kabuki to Groucho) shifts its identity through a stack of layered face masks: a Kabuki theater mask wears a Frankenstein mask, which is wearing a clown mask, which is wearing a Groucho Marx mask. “Like humans, even masks have multidimensional layers, suggesting the complexity that makes up everyone and everything and the impossibility of ever fully understanding other people or the world around us. Similarly the question mark door knocker turns any door into a “Mystery door”, like those found in a fun house or classic television game show, where the host dares a participant to guess “what is behind the door?” Positioned on a front door as a door knocker, the work offers a chance for the person at the doorstep to contemplate the infinite potential of what could be revealed once the door is opened as well as the chance for the door opener or in a fantastic world the door knocker to decide what will be shown and what is concealed.” Two meticulously drawn watercolours, a depiction of a colander and one of a crystal ball, complete Jamie Isenstein’s group of works, mimicking each other in form, “they are opposites in function; although both are different kinds of filtering systems.”

Benedikte Bjerre (*1987, Copenhagen, Denmark) contributes an assisted readymade to the exhibition: two stacks of industrial egg trays “creating a kind of egg architecture, that might remind us of another architecture for eggs — the ovaries. 24 Kinder Surprise eggs are spread throughout the structure. This work is wrestling with how women like me are expected to exist and deliver on a steady level — throughout a life of ongoing biological changes. The title Joy is a word describing a feeling regulated by hormones.” At the same time, Joy is also the name of the Kinder Surprise product adapted for the U.S. market, since the original Kinder Surprise was banned due to choking hazards from the toy inside. Kinder therefore developed the Kinder Joy, which stores chocolate and the toy in two separate compartments.

Clare Goodwin (*1973, Birmingham, UK, lives in Zurich) presents a new assemblage work composed of doors and wooden elements sourced from second-hand furniture and kitchen modules, which she discovered through her own research. These pieces are left in their original condition and size, carrying visible traces of use and memory. Clare Goodwin combines these found elements with handmade ceramics of her own, which introduce a contrasting quality into the overall composition: the hard material appears unexpectedly soft — almost "soft-edge." “This shift, together with the reconfigured wooden elements, reflects my ongoing interest in how past and present intersect in a dialogue of form, context, and lived experience. Drawing on hard-edge and minimal abstraction, I use formal strategies to reflect on the systems, structures, and codes that govern domestic environments and echo social histories. I often describe this approach as Constructive Nostalgia – a way of reinterpreting the past to offer new perspectives on the present. My work also engages with utopian aesthetics and gendered spatial narratives, leading to a space for reflection on the material and symbolic layers of daily life. To me, these works operate like wall-based “event spaces” – minimal in appearance yet charged with domestic histories and latent narratives. Almost like a cut-out of the everyday.” Next to this assemblage work hang three watercolours by Goodwin based on miniature furniture created in Bogliasco, Liguria, during her residency in early 2025.

Anne-Lise Coste (*1973, Marignane, France, lives in Paris) presents two series of works created during times of transition, displacement and reorientation. The still lives from the Love and Flower series were painted by Anne-Lise Coste between 2010 and 2014, at the beginning of and throughout her stay in New York City. The noise, the crowds, and the intensity of Manhattan were overwhelming for her. She went to an art supply store and bought small pre-stretched canvases, on which she began painting still lives. These works are exercises in contemplation and concentration. The Top of the Lake series was painted by Anne-Lise Coste following another relocation — this time from Sète in the South of France to Paris in 2025. As the title already suggests, these vibrant paintings convey a mood of renewal and optimism.