Silvia Bächli: they’ve turned into each other. Which is which? Cat. Kunst Museum Winterthur

Silvia Bä chli (*1956) has developed her drawing oeuvre since the late 1970s in a manner that is both cautious and consistent. Her expressive approach to physicality developed over time to an almost introspective view of reality. Everyday perception forms the starting point of Siliva Bä chli’ s artistic process during which she appropriates things to give them an autonomous form in drawing. Starting in 1984, she began combining small-format drawings into ensembles, multipart wall compositions. Since 2001 she created large-format paper works with overlapping, filigree lineaments; in recent years she has become more prudent about the relationship between the areas of color and the background. Silvia Bä chli’ s quiet work is now appreciated all over the world and has been exhibited in Centre Pompidou in Paris (2007), the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich (2014), the Museum Weserburg in Bremen (2022), and the Centro Botin in Santander (2024). In 2009 she represented Switzerland at the 53rd Venice Biennale. The exhibition at Kunst Museum Winterthur is entitled » They’ ve Turned into Each Other. Which Is Which?« after a line in a poem by American poet Elizabeth Bishop. The picture book conceived by Silvia Bä chli offers a comprehensive overview of her multifaceted oeuvre, with a series of small sculptures that she is presenting in Switzerland for the first time. » My work entails approaching something that I don’ t know well and finding out about it by doing« , she said.

Elizabeth Bishop (Worcester, Mass. 1911– 1979 Boston) was an American poet and short-stroy writer. She was Consultat in Poetry to the Library of Congress (1949– 1950), the Pulitzer Price winner for Poetry (1956), the National Book Award winner (1970), and the recipient of the Neustadt International Prize for Literature (1976). Dwight Garner argued in 2018 that she was perhaps » the most purely gifted poet oft he 20th century« . Silvia Bä chli (*1956, Baden) is a visual artist who has become known primarily for her drawing. In doing so, she sparingly condenses gestures and obvious things, using a limited range of media – gouache, oil pastel or ink on paper – and uses diluted black watercolor to create concentrated visual effects with coagulating strokes, lines and blots, sometimes taking bodies, horizon lines or open structures as their measure. She was a professor at the Akademie der Kü nste in Karlsruhe and has been awarded numerous prizes, including the Prix Meret Oppenheim in 2003. Konrad Bitterli (*1960, St. Gallen) former curator of Kunstmuseum St. Gallen is since 2017 the director of the Kunst Museum Winterthur and follows Dieter Schwarz in this directorate. The main focus in his work sees Konrad Bitterli in an intensive communication of art to the general public and wants to continue comparitive works as did shown with the exhibitions Hodler– Giacometti, Daumier– Pettibon, or about the work of so different artists as alike Roman Signer, Steven Parino, Jonathan Lasker, Donald Judd, Mona Hartoum et al. Konrad Bitterli (*1960, St. Gallen) former curator of Kunstmuseum St. Gallen is since 2017 the director of the Kunst Museum Winterthur and follows Dieter Schwarz in this directorate. The main focus in his work sees Konrad Bitterli in an intensive communication of art to the general public and wants to continue comparitive works as did shown with the exhibitions Hodler– Giacometti, Daumier– Pettibon, or about the work of so different artists as alike Roman Signer, Steven Parino, Jonathan Lasker, Donald Judd, Mona Hartoum et al.