Dame Zaha Hadid passed away in Miami on March 31, 2016 at the age of 65. On the 5th Anniversary of her death, Galerie Gmurzynska is honoured to present an immersive homage to the visionary Architect.
The shared interests between the gallery and Zaha Hadid for the Russian avant-garde fortuitously crossed paths in 1992 at the monumental exhibition The Great Utopia, at the Guggenheim Museum for which Zaha Hadid designed the rotunda–the first architect tasked with reimagining the Frank Lloyd Wright architectural icon. From early in her career, her peerless aesthetic was deeply inspired by Kazimir Malevich and the Suprematists, on whom she prepared her graduation thesis in 1976.
The gallery's active collaboration with Zaha Hadid from 2010 until her death began with the idea to again combine her knowledge of the Russian avant-garde with her architectural practice, which had advanced deeper since the Guggenheim exhibition. Thus, in 2010, the exhibition Zaha Hadid and Suprematism was held at Galerie Gmurzynska's headquarters on Paradeplatz in Zurich. The exhibition and book, published together with Hatje Cantz, became a global event. This first collaboration with Zaha was followed by many other exhibition projects, including at Art Basel. On the occasion of the important Malevich retrospective held in 2014 at Tate London the star architect was asked to take part in a long documentary about Malevich with the BBC. Part of this documentary included an interview with Galerie Gmurzynska CEO Mathias Rastorfer and Zaha Hadid about Malevich and the nature of architecture and art.
The final project completely planned by Zaha Hadid was again to show the dramatic development of her architecture in the context of another foundational modern master: Kurt Schwitters. The exhibition architecture was planned entirely by Hadid, and the selection of works by Schwitters was as well rigorously curated by her. Hadid unfortunately died before the opening of the show and left behind an architectural monument remaining unchanged in the Galerie Gmurzynska on Paradeplatz, open to the public.
The latest exhibition at Galerie Gmurzynska titled Abstracting The Landscape was conceived and created with the same team with whom the gallery planned and executed all Zaha Hadid exhibitions since 2010. It has been a fruitful and euphoric collaboration for all involved, for which Galerie Gmurzynska expresses its heartfelt gratitude to the entire Zaha Hadid design and archive team. In this spirit of long-term collaboration and the highest respect for her perpetual vision, historical projects with models and drawings, as well as sculptural objects realised since her passing have been individually selected to be integrated into a custom floor design displaying Hadid's best traits. The exhibition will also feature site-specific objects, as well as never-before exhibited designs.
Zaha Hadid (1950–2016), founder of Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004. Each of her pioneering projects built on over thirty years of exploration and research in the interrelated fields of urbanism, architecture and design. Hadid completed her first building, the Vitra Fire Station, Germany in 1993. She was a professor at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.
GALERIE GMURZYNSKA is an international art gallery with locations in Zurich, Zug and St. Moritz, Switzerland, that specialises in modern and contemporary art as well as Russian avant-garde.
The gallery was founded in 1965 in Cologne, Germany by Antonina Gmurzynska. From the beginning, the gallery was interested in organising exhibitions that had a documentary character both through the choice of themes and through its publications.
In 1996 Mathias Rastorfer became a partner of both extensions of the gallery, having been with it since 1991 when he left his position as Associate Director at Pace Gallery in New York. Under his influence and in addition to the gallery’s traditional repertoire, the work of contemporary artists such as Donald Judd, Louise Nevelson and Yves Klein amongst others, was incorporated. Ten years later the gallery opened its third branch in St. Moritz at Via Serlas, in 2003.
Forty years after its establishment, Krystyna Gmurzynska and Mathias Rastorfer relocated the gallery from Cologne to its new flagship location in Zurich’s Paradeplatz in 2005. The building that currently houses the gallery dates back to 1857 and it is the same building in which the Dada movement was founded in 1917. The first exhibition in Zurich was a solo exhibition by Alexander Calder entitled, The Modernist, that was thoroughly endorsed by the Calder Foundation, which described it is as, 'rare to experience a presentation of this quality outside of a museum'. As with each exhibition at the gallery the show featured a fully illustrated catalogue with important essays.
Galerie Gmurzynska continues to present unique exhibitions that are both historically well researched and scientifically documented. It also continues to work with leading art historians as well as collaborating with museums on exhibitions and for the enlargement of their permanent collections. Additionally, it currently participates in several art fairs such as Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Basel Hong Kong, Frieze Masters in London, Salon in New York and Art Basel, Switzerland. In the past it has taken part in FIAC, Abu Dhabi and PAD New York.
