RITZWIRTH anderswar
3 July 2021 – 29 August 2021
The Biel duo RITZWIRTH has a unique position in the Swiss art scene. Katia Ritz (*1973, CH) as an architect and Florian Hauswirth (*1976, CH) as an industrial designer not only realise architectural projects, but have also been working together on installations since 2009. Central to their work are interventions that are directly related to their surroundings and are conceived very situationally and differently in each case. In their first large solo exhibition, they present past projects as well as a monumental installation that reinterprets the functions of the Kunsthaus building.
The title of the exhibition, anderswar (Old High German for «elsewhere»), indirectly includes the term perception and implies a possible otherness or a sense of departure. Through their free approach as well as their hybrid practice between art, design and architecture, RITZWIRTH change the respective location in a surprising way. In the Altbau, they present projects from the last 12 years using installation fragments, design models, sketches and material samples, as well as photographs and film or audio recordings. Among them is a remarkable range of projects, from scenographic works, such as for the Zentrum Paul Klee or the Hohe Kasten mountain station in Appenzell, to the Raketen Regenwasser Silo (2018) (rocket rainwater silo) on the Gurzelen site in Biel, the extension of the Coupole Biel, which can be used for various activities, to a window installation consisting of envelopes for the Ishinomaki Laboratory in Tokyo. They react above all to urban environments, such as at les Urbaines in Lausanne with an organ that picks up the sounds of rainwater running off and emits them into the urban space, or in the Spazio Lampo space in Chiasso, where a hunter’s hideout in the city highlights the problem of migration and the visitors become peepers and spies. Or, in the context of the sculpture triennial Bex & Arts, they intervened in nature by tearing concrete casts out of the ground, thus demonstrating human intervention in nature. RITZWIRTH’s fluid combination of different materials, approaches and techniques enables a multifaceted approach. As a complement to the spatial, sound is repeatedly integrated into their work.
Already known in their adopted hometown of Biel for architectural commissions and interventions in public spaces, RITZWIRTH contextualise the surroundings and architectural characteristics of Kunsthaus Pasquart in order to transform them. With concrete casts that they make in public open spaces in the city, the transience of such places is focused on as a stimulus for joint, forward-looking planning. The furniture made of red and white construction barrier panels transports the urban space – also through Biel’s coat of arms colours – into the Kunsthaus. In the Salle Poma, the hermetic structure and cool aesthetics of the White Cube are broken up with a new monumental installation. Inspired by the current exceptional situation with Covid-19, the interior and exterior are to be experienced in a new way and the function of the Kunsthaus building is to be questioned. While three periscopes function like optical conduits to the outside, channels are parasitically attached to the building, allowing a view to the outside and partly also vice versa into the building. RITZWIRTH’s previous experimentation with the different scales of objects, buildings and cities is radically expanded here: they transfer the prototype of an object onto a building and into the city. RITZWIRTH wants us to become «tourists in our own everyday life», whereby other perspectives are opened up and new things – detached from life – are made possible.
Curator of the exhibition
Felicity Lunn, director Kunsthaus Pasquart
Publication
A publication accompanying the exhibition with texts by Felicity Lunn, Victoria Easton, Tido von Oppeln and Antonia Steger is published by the Verlag für moderne Kunst (DT / FR / ENG).
Art at noon
Fri 9.7.2021, 12:15am (dt/fr) Short visit followed by a lunch snack
Registration: info@pasquart.ch, CHF 15.-
Artists’ talk and book launch
Thurs 19.8.2021, 6pm(dt/fr) RITZWIRTH in conversation with Felicity Lunn
Round table
Wed 25.8.2021, 6pm (dt/fr) with RITZWIRTH, L/B Lang Baumann, urban equipe, Felicity Lunn
Guided tours
Thurs 12.8.2021, 6pm (dt) Felicity Lunn and Stefanie Gschwend, curators of the exhibitions
Thurs 26.8.2021, 6pm (fr) Julie Carron, art historian
With the kind support of the Foundation Collection Kunsthaus Pasquart