The immediate physical presence of color is central to Katharina Grosse's creative endeavor. Through an open-ended creative process in which painting takes on the form of a performance, color embodies movement, making its emotional potential tangible. These issues are not only driving her dramatically large in situ works painted across various surfaces in public places. They also inform her studio paintings, which have played an equally central role in her practice from the start. This book is the first study focusing on Grosse's studio practice from the late 1980s to the present. Five essays and an insightful interview with the artist explore how Grosse expands the concept of painting - not just in open space, but also on canvas - through creating an ephemeral character and removing the limitations of its traditional frame.

Colour and light as sensory stimulus and the phenomenon of light encountering surfaces are core elements of the work of artists Silvia Gertsch, born in Switzerland in 1963, and the German Xerxes Ach, born in 1957. Gertsch works on reverse-glass, using snapshots of young people in summer, sunbathing, strolling down the street, or children absorbed in play. Ach has turned to micro-phenomena in which light encounters various materials, is refracted in various ways, and generates abstract visual compositions. In spite of their different stylistic languages - realism on the one side, abstract colour field painting on the other - occupying antagonistic positions in contemporary painting, the two artists take a similar approach, starting from photos they take themselves and digitally edit, as well as found ones recording fleeting visual stimuli. Coinciding with a dual exhibition of Silvia Gertsch and Xerxes Ach at the Museum of Fine Arts Bern, this new book features their work from two decades. Richly illustrated, it puts their differing pictorial languages in a dance-like dialogue, revealing each artist's relation to current artistic discourses.

In the summer of 2021, Miriam Cahn's project FREMD das fremde in the southern valley of Bergell in the Swiss canton of Grisons provoked a lasting echo both in the public and the media. The world-renowned contemporary artist, who has lived in the valley for years, set new, unexpected accentuations with her most recent work in the historic Palazzo Castelmur. As part of a multi-layered performance, the publication embraces the theme of being a stranger and advances a deepening of the discourse. The book reflects the conceptual openness of Miriam Cahn's artistically as well as socially arousing project. The works have been captured by internationally acclaimed Swiss photographer Lukas Wassmann, representing their special spatial constellation arranged by the artist herself.

Korea is still a divided country that apparently never found its way out of the Cold War. The differences between the socialist North, which follows a dynastic leadership cult, and the capitalist South, with its developed democracy, could hardly be greater. Encompassing all areas of life, this divergence is also reflected in the art of the two countries: through the vibrant contemporary art scene in South Korea and the socialist-realist tradition of painting in North Korea, two diametrically opposed artistic attitudes exist in parallel, reflecting the incompatibility of the political systems and the stark differences in the way of life of the populations. To mark the exhibition of both North and South Korean works from the Sigg Collection at the Kunstmuseum Bern, a comprehensive, richly illustrated catalogue is being published, which sheds light upon the theme of the border in contemporary Korean art from both sides.

In the summer of 2021, Miriam Cahn's project FREMD das fremde in the southern valley of Bergell in the Swiss canton of Grisons provoked a lasting echo both in the public and the media. The world-renowned contemporary artist, who has lived in the valley for years, set new, unexpected accentuations with her most recent work in the historic Palazzo Castelmur. As part of a multi-layered performance, the publication embraces the theme of being a stranger and advances a deepening of the discourse. The book reflects the conceptual openness of Miriam Cahn's artistically as well as socially arousing project. The works have been captured by internationally acclaimed Swiss photographer Lukas Wassmann, representing their special spatial constellation arranged by the artist herself. Texts by: Bernardo Bader, Lukas Barfuss, Kathleen Buhler, Gianna Olinda Cadonau, Miriam Cahn, Marta Dziewanska, Monique Eckmann, Kobi Gantenbein, Maria Giuseppina Grasso Cannizzo, Maria Janion, Johanna Lier, Melinda Nadj Abonji, Paul B. Preciado, Francesca Recchia, Armando Ruinelli, Alberto Salvadori, Ludmila Seifert, Vincenzo Todisco, Andrea Tognina, Ursina Trautmann, Concetto Vecchio

For three months Biel, Switzerland, hosted a special kind of sculpture. It was special not simply because it was by one of Switzerland's most famous contemporary artists-Thomas Hirschhorn-and dedicated to one of the most prominent authors in the history of Swiss literature, Robert Walser. Beyond that, this sculpture was a redefinition of sculpture itself, because what takes on a plastic form here is not made of stone, steel, or bronze. It is society itself that helped to develop this work of art. In 2016 Thomas Hirschhorn and the curator Kathleen Buhler began doing field research in Biel, the city of Robert Walser's birth, connecting with residents, clubs, artists, literati, and experts. This resulted in a multifaceted agenda. Every day the two offered events such as readings, walking tours, lectures, and children's activities. All of this ultimately comprised the Robert Walser-Sculpture. Never before has an entire city been integrated into a temporary work of art in this way.

A rebel and feminist, the Switzerland-born Miriam Cahn is one of the major artists of her generation. Widely known for her drawings and paintings, she also experiments with photography, moving images, sculptures, and performance art. Cahn's diverse body of work is disturbing and dreamlike, filled with striking human figures pulsing with an energy both passionate and violent. These pieces, along with Cahn's reflections on artistic expression, have always responded to her contemporary moment. In the 1980s, her work addressed the feminist, peace, and environmental movements, while the work she produced in the 1990s and early 2000s contains allusions to the war in the former Yugoslavia, the conflict in the Middle East, and the September 11 terrorist attacks. Her recent production tackles ever-evolving political conflicts, engaging with the European refugee crisis and the "#metoo" movement. Miriam Cahn: I as Human examines different facets of the artist's prolific and troubling oeuvre, featuring contributions from art historians, critics, and philosophers including Kathleen Buhler, Paul B. Preciado, Elisabeth Lebovici, Adam Szymczyk, Natalia Sielewicz and .

The Swiss company Baloise has a reputation among art experts, but not just as an insurance and financial services company. With its programs that support art, its collaborations with museums, and the renowned Baloise Art Prize for young artists, which is awarded at Art Basel, the company has had a lasting effect on the development of contemporary art. Less well-known up to now is the fact that, parallel to the company's activities, it has also built a first-class art collection, which dates back to the mid-twentieth century. Since turning to contemporary art in the 1990s, the company has collected the works of notable artists. With a focus on photography and works on paper from the 1960s onward, some of the artists represented in the collection are Miriam Cahn, Simon Denny, Katharina Fritsch, Bruce Nauman, and Jeff Wall. Baloise Art is the first publication to provide a broader audience with an overview of the collection. Informative texts by prestigious authors accompany the artworks.

Norbert Bisky's artistic cosmos is as colorful as it is gruesome. Many of his figurative paintings are suffused with densely packed body parts-heads, torsos, arms-caught in flood waves and wedged into one another. Orange skin tones, light pink, green, yellow, and violet against radiant blue or somber black-brown dominate the palette, an intense chromaticity that often contrasts with the themes of the paintings: nude male bodies are torn apart, handsome faces mangled. Bisky's powerful painting engenders ambivalent feelings in which he explores the boundaries of representation. The publication provides a first, long-overdue art-historical examination of Bisky's oeuvre. Hubertus Gassner, Kathleen Buhler, Dorothee Brill, and other authors pursue the questions prompted by this vehement style of painting: Why this brutal treatment of the body and its image? Why the decomposition of figuration and fixed structures? Where is Bisky to be positioned? Exhibition: Kunsthalle Rostock 16.11.2014-15.2.2015