CATHY JOSEFOWITZ

Release Hauser & Wirth 1 February–17 May 2024 Zürich, Limmatstrasse

Press Release

In her quest to represent the body as an expressive vehicle of individual experience, New York-born, Swiss-raisedartist Cathy Josefowitz (1956 – 2014) created a wide-ranging oeuvre spanning drawing and painting, performanceand dance. The breadth of her creative output will be on view in a solo exhibition—Josefowitz’s first in Zurich—focusing on her compelling progression of the figure across four decades, from the 1970s to her later shift towardsabstraction, with many works shown for the first time. The presentation takes its title from Josefowitz’s choreographicpiece ‘Release’ (1988), a performance replete with fluid movements projected on the wall of the gallery. The artisttakes the feeling of liberation to a whole new meaning, finding freedom in her dance and in her paintings.

On view are Josefowitz’s oils on cardboard and gouaches on paper from the 1970s in which the artist plays withtraditional depictions of the reclining nude through a female lens. Later paintings on canvas and watercolours onreceipts from the early 1990s reveal a new way of working with the figure through a shift in pattern, style, colourand form. The figurative realm soon gave way to increasing abstraction, releasing the body from literal depictions.Josefowitz’s Prayers series (1998-2001) depicts prayer shawls and mats that often came to represent familymembers, whilst the Venus series (2004-2006) places the motif of the cloth in dialogue with tropes of womanhoodfrom art history. In surveying the development of Josefowitz’s visual language, this exhibition attests to the artist’senduring determination to depict the figure in both its anatomical and metaphysical dimensions.

Exhibition view: Cathy Josefowitz, Release, Hauser & Wirth, Zurich (1 February–17 May 2024). © Estate of Cathy Josefowitz. Courtesy Estate of Cathy Josefowitz and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Jon Etter.

Selected Works

Untitled by Cathy Josefowitz contemporary artwork painting works on paper

Cathy Josefowitz Untitled, 1992 Oil and charcoal on paper mounted on canvas
133.8 x 150 x 2 cm
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About the Artist

Prolific, prescient and powerfully original yet under-recognised in her lifetime, Josefowitz (1956–2014) produced a diverse body of work that ingeniously transcends hierarchies of medium and genre. Over the course of four decades, this New York-born, Swiss-raised artist created an oeuvre of remarkable ambition, spanning drawing and painting, theatre and dance, as she developed a deeply personal visual syntax in her quest to represent the body as an expressive vehicle of individual experience. Josefowitz’s practice reconciled the visual arts and performance, leaving an exceptional legacy as substantial in scale as it is intimate and potent in its impact.

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AVERY SINGER War_overlays Hauser & Wirth 12 June–5 September 2026 Zürich, Limmatstrasse

FRANK BOWLING Like Water Hauser & Wirth 11 June–29 August 2026 Hong Kong

About the Gallery

Hauser & Wirth was founded in 1992 in Zurich by Iwan Wirth, Manuela Wirth and Ursula Hauser, who were joined in 2000 by Partner and Vice President Marc Payot. A family business with a global outlook, Hauser & Wirth has expanded over the past 26 years to include outposts in Hong Kong, London, New York, Los Angeles, Somerset and Gstaad. The gallery represents over 70 artists and estates who have been instrumental in shaping its identity over the past quarter century, and who are the inspiration for Hauser & Wirth’s diverse range of activities that engage with art, education, conservation and sustainability.

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Address

Limmatstrasse 270
Zurich
Switzerland

Opening Hours

Tues - Fri, 11am - 6pm
Sat, 11am - 5pm

Hauser & Wirth

Limmatstrasse 270, Zurich, Switzerland

+41 444 468 050
http://www.hauserwirth.com

Opening hours

Tues - Fri, 11am - 6pm
Sat, 11am - 5pm

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The art world in focus

CATHY JOSEFOWITZ

Installation Views

Selected Works

Also Exhibiting at Hauser & Wirth