Olaf Breuning

Sunday Read

Colors and playfulness are the watchwords of Olaf Breuning’s corpus. So are they of Gestalten’s new publication on the contemporary Swiss artist simply and self-explanatory called Olaf Breuning. The oeuvre of the multi-media artist is spanning over more than 200 pages and accompanied by the texts of three of the artist’s friends and colleagues.

Breuning made it clear that the publication should concentrates on his works only. Explanations should come from the images and not from the texts. And with good reason, as his works contain plenty of powerful to-the-point citations. As proved with his installation series presented at the Gary Tatintsina Gallery in Moscow in 2014. On round marble shape reminding modern tombstones are inscribed the sentences ‘Don’t think too much it hurts!’, ‘Things come and go but mostly go!’ or ‘Oops life played me again’. Humor and pop culture are the main elements wandering through the Swiss artist’s corpus. This facet of his work is embodied through Alain Bieber’s introductory text. A commentary on the overall symbols created and used by the artist and embodied through his Art Freaks series from 2011. Twenty pages further it is Brian Kerstetter the main protagonist of Breuning’s movie Home (2007) who writes his takes on the artist’s work. Biographic and fantastic all at once, the text brings the lector within Breuning’s working intimacy. The third and last text is by art critic and curator Gianni Jetzer. He evokes the similarities between Breuning and Ferdinand Hodler while placing the artist’s works within the bigger picture that is art history.

The Gestalten’s publication introduces wordily and visually the works of the artist who leaves a wave of humanity, colors, facetiousness behind him.

Olaf Breuning

Gestalten