Rémy Zaugg: The Particular Place

Rémy Zaugg (1943–2005) was an internationally renowned artist who lived and worked in Basel and Mulhouse. He saw himself as a painter, yet he would not limit himself solely to the production of images. Rather, from his painterly practice he generated general assumptions for a processual conception of the work that enabled him to view spatial, architectural, and urban contexts in new, unfamiliar ways. Accordingly, the perceiving human being as a member of society was always at the center of his considerations—all his aesthetic assumptions led to the emancipatory idea of the "becoming" subject. In addition to his extensive painterly and written oeuvre, it is therefore his activities and projects for and in public space that are essential for understanding Zaugg’s particular artistic position. The book is dedicated to this socially relevant complex of topics, documenting all of the artist’s respective realized and unrealized projects, with a particular focus on the following key aspects of his work: museum architecture (here in particular his collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron), exhibitions with works by other artists, art in public spaces as well as his preoccupation.

Simon Baur is an art historian, lives in Basel, and is a freelance publicist and curator. Corinne Diserens studied art and film history at the Sorbonne in Paris and at the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. She was curator at IVAM Valencia from 1989-1993, director of the Musée de Marseille from 1996-1999, of the Musée des Beaus-Arts de Nantes from 2001-2005, and of the Museion Bolzano from 2005-2008. She has published countless essays on advanced artistic positions, including Carl Andre, Dan Graham, Eva Hesse, Santu Mofokeng, Gordon Matta-Clark, Gabriel Orozco, Paola Yacoub. The editor Eva Schmidt is art historian and a curator, since 2004 she was director of the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen and retired in 2019. She has curated numerous monographic exhibitions amongst others to Lucian Freud, Sigmar Polke, Bridget Riley, Antoni Tapies, Niele Toroni, and others. She revealed her special interests in thematic shows like »Dear Aby Warburg, what can be done with the images?« or 2018 with »Remembering Landscape«. Eva Schmidt is a member of the Board of the Association of Friends of Rémy Zaugg and is the editor of this affable volume on Rémy Zaugg. HERZOG & DE MEURON established in Basel in 1978. Herzog & de Meuron is a partnership led by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron together with Senior Partners and an international team of over 500 collaborators across Europe, the Americas and Asia. Their practice has designed a wide range of projects from the small scale of a private home to the large scale of urban design. Many projects are highly recognized public facilities, such as museums, stadiums, and hospitals, and they have completed distinguished private projects including offices, laboratories and apartment buildings. HERZOG & DE MEURON established in Basel in 1978. Herzog & de Meuron is a partnership led by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron together with Senior Partners and an international team of over 500 collaborators across Europe, the Americas and Asia. Their practice has designed a wide range of projects from the small scale of a private home to the large scale of urban design. Many projects are highly recognized public facilities, such as museums, stadiums, and hospitals, and they have completed distinguished private projects including offices, laboratories and apartment buildings. Christoph Oswald, born in 1961, lives and works in Zurich, where he studied art history and politics and initially wrote for a number of European art magazines before working for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Weltwoche and Tages-Anzeiger. He has held various teaching positions and professorships, most recently realizing close to 400 projects for art in public spaces for the city of Zurich from 2009 to 2020. Mathilde de Croix, born 1990, lives and works in Paris. She holds a research and a professional master’s degree from the University of Paris Sorbonne in Contemporary Art. Since 2017, she has worked as a curator at the Monnaie de Paris. She co-curated the exhibitions “A pied d’œuvre(s)” (2017) on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Centre Pompidou, Subodh Gupta (2018) and Thomas Schütte (2019), she also worked with Michel Gauthier in the preparation of the sixth edition of the festival “Air de Jeu” at the Centre Pompidou. Rémy Zaugg (1943–2005) dealt with questions of perception in his conceptual work. He did not see it as limited to seeing, but as a human function of the reciprocal relationship to the world. His work includes painting, drawing, sculpture, works in public space, art on building projects and architectural designs. Among the artists of his generation, he is considered one of the role models for the transmedial approaches of today's young generations of artists. His collaboration with the architects Herzog & de Meuron, with whom he realized around 15 projects in the years before his death. The editor Eva Schmidt is art historian and a curator,