Cardboard Mixed Media

Nic Hess (*1968 in Zurich, where he also lives and works) studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and at the University of the Arts, Berlin. He got mainly known for his expansive installations and wall collages made of tapes and foils. With these, he deconstructed signs (logos) and symbols from the worlds of business and art history. Now, however, he resorts to his own sign-system, signs that stem from his biography or his personal environment. In particular, for his collages, that he was doing in the last years, he was using hundreds of art and architecture books that he had found in his late father’s library. Like many people in a similar situation, Hess asked himself what he was to do with the books. And he decided to make productive use of them and for his own work. By transforming the books of the library into his own art he created a sort of memorial to his father, who had been an architect working in Zurich. Because with the reproductions of some of the illustrated books he made collages, playful new compositions based on the works of artists (the Swiss Max Bill, the Americans Edward Hopper and Roy Liechtenstein, and the Belgian René Magritte) and on depictions of buildings by Le Corbusier, his father's absolute hero on the field of architecture. In “Le Monde du Corbusier” we have an artwork that cites almost all the most significant buildings by Le Corbusier (the church “Notre Dame du Haut [Ronchamp]”; the “Owner’s Association” building in Ahmedabad, India; the “Unité d’Habitation” in Marseille, France; the “Weißenhofsiedlung” in Stuttgart, Germany) and it portraits, in the center of the collage the architect himself, looking over the rim of his characteristic glasses. The collage itself has a delicate and elegant form, somewhat comparable to the elegance of Le Corbusiers buildings. The œuvre of the architect is transformed into a collaged jewel. Hess looks back to a long career and to a very large number of institutional solo-shows of which here just a few are mentioned: Zulieferer unter Druck, Städtische Galerie, Wolfsburg (2016); Der Stoff aus dem die Träume waren, Kunsthalle Münster, Münster (2015); Ein Titel muss her!, Kunststation Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg (2013); The Birds (for Lilou), Swiss Institute, New York (2012); Silberpfeil, Mercedes Benz Museum, Stuttgart (2011); Automatic Crash Response, Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2009); Escape, Schloß Ringenberg, Hamminkeln (2009); Sculptures, The Project, New York (2008); Food4Less, Museo de Zapopan, Zapopan (2007); Walls/Muri (with Federico Herrero...

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Otis Huband begins his work with no preconceived ideas, but rather to discover what will reveal itself. He states, "I work from the inside out rather than from the outside in. I do n...