ALBRECHT SCHNIDER: TWO

Marc Jancou Contemporary is pleased to announce Albrecht Schnider: Two, an exhibition of thirty-two works on paper by the Swiss artist as part of the gallery’s OFFSITE series. On view from May 28 through June 2, 2019, at 139 Eldridge Street, New York, the exhibition is accompanied by a limited edition and a fully illustrated catalogue featuring a text by Simon Maurer, Director of the Helmhaus, Zurich.

Albrecht Schnider, born in 1958 in Lucerne, works in painting, drawing and small-scale sculpture. The artist’s complex image construction process is both creative and constructive; beginning within the dialogically-linked act of drawing and the analysis of shape, to the choice of color and form. Through this process, Schnider’s paintings are meticulously planned, and rigorously structured, organized and executed. Abstract, organically, and geometrically shaped fields of color are superimposed onto monochrome backgrounds. Alternating between different colors, they oscillate between figure and the monochromatic backdrop upon which it is juxtaposed; positive and negative image.

The thirty-two small-scale works comprising Two were created by hand using stencils and spray paint. All identical in size and format, the pieces feature monochromatic planes of colors juxtaposed in a manner calling attention to both the harmony and incongruity of shape and negative space on the picture plane. This tension results in a visual dissonance within the viewer, demanding s/he perceive a balanced image by way of imbalanced shape and color. Through these seemingly simple studies, Schnider elucidates the elaborate mental processes at play when viewers are confronted with incongruity, showing that the default rules demand we perceive balance even in a lack of balance.

Marc Jancou Contemporary has previously organized six solo shows with Schnider: Marc Jancou at Giovanella Kunstglaserei, Saanen (2017); Instant Phenomenon, New York (2015); Landschaften, OFFSITE: Rossinière (2014); Pastels, Geneva (2014); Melancholia of the Verge, New York (2012); and Raum Falten, Geneva (2012).

Schnider was recently the subject of the documentary film Albrecht Schnider: Beyond the Vanished by Rita Ziegler. Over the course of three years, Ziegler accompanied Schnider with uncanny patience in his critical search for images, as he paints the same graphic gesture again and again, rejects it and wipes it away. After weeks, even months, Ziegler succeeds in recording the completion of two images with the camera, capturing a magical moment for Schnider, when a “picture looks back” and he leaves it alone. Through the shared concentration  of the unusually long collaboration grew a familiarity in which Schnider was increasingly able to speak about what moves him to work.