Breathing Objects. The new species

Günter Weseler

From 4^th December 2014 to 14^th February 2015
Opening: tuesday 4^th December 2014, 2 pm

Galleria Allegra Ravizza is pleased to present, for the first time in Switzerland, a solo show by the German artist Günter Weseler (born in Poland in 1930, he lives and works in Düsseldorf), with a series of “Atemobjekte”, the works that have been most typical of him since he first made them in 1966. These “Atemobjekte”, whose translation might be “breathing objects”, inquire into the primary function of breathing; in fact we could even say that their very existence is testified to by the pure and simple fact that they literally “breathe”. For some fifty years the artist – one of the most secluded and singular of his generation – has made the essential function of breathing the centre of his inquiries, and has concretized this positive obsession into an animal form, one covered in fur and which “nests” in the home to experience a real and virtual existence parallel to that of human beings. This is a new population, both tranquil and disquieting at the same time; it is one that could colonize the planet without showing any kind of bellicose intentions simply by reproducing itself, which the artists hints at by scattering around the rooms these presences that live their life autonomously, without communicating, without showing any aim or intention apart from simply existing. It is not by chance that the exhibition’s title is “Breathing Objects. The New Species”, which underlines the existence of a possible evolution independent of the progress of humanity, though not in conflict with it. Weseler invites us to be prepared…