TEFAF
About
GALLERI K, STAND 718, PAPER SECTION.
FRANZ GERTSCH
NATASCHA I - II - III - IV 1986-88
SOLO SHOW
Thursday 14 - Sunday 24 March, 2019
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For the third consecutive year we present a solo show by Swiss artist Franz Gertsch (born 1930).
This year we dedicate our booth to his iconic portrait of “Natascha” with several impressions of each of the 4 different versions of the artist’sfirst major woodcut. It is the result of two years work.
Gertsch’s large-scale woodcuts were first shown in NY, MoMA in 1989.
Franz Gertsch belongs to a generation of artists becoming active during the 1960s, in a post war Europe marked by the new era of consumerism and popular culture. It is natural to associate Gertsch’s figurative and photorealistic works from this period with the European Pop Art movement and with contemporary colleagues such as Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke in Germany, as well the artist Chuck Close in the USA. Just like the three artists, Gertsch’s point of departure is the photographic image. During the 1970s, he won international acclaim with his hyperrealist paintings, among them a series of situational portraits of the rock star Patti Smith. Of particular importance was his participation in Harald Szeemann’s legendary Documenta exhibition in Kassel in 1972 (Documenta 5) with Gertsch’s 400 x 600 cm large painting Medici (1971) becoming one of the main attractions. Since then, he has participated three times in the Venice Biennial, and exhibited in 1990 in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, in addition to opening his own museum in 2002, the museum franz gertsch in Burgdorf, outside his home city of Bern. In 2005 he had his first “Retrospective” there and at the Kunstmuseum Bern, further venues of the exhibition where Ludwig Forum, Aachen, Kunsthalle Tübingen as well as Mumok and Albertina, Vienna (2006). In 2011 there was a large exhibition “Franz Gertsch. Jahreszeiten (Seasons), works from 1983 to 2011”, Kunsthaus Zürich. The Swiss Institute, NY held a solo show “Polyfocal Allover” in 2018 combining paintings and woodcuts.
Galleri K will have a solo show “Selected woodcuts 1986 – 2017” by Franz Gertsch in Oslo, March 29 – April 28, 2019. MASILugano will present “Cut in Wood” Gertsch – Gauguin – Munch from May 10 – September 22, 2019.
