Urs Lüthi, who holds major international acclaim, is known for his uncanny self-staging photographs and sculptures. He has a rigorous art practice in which he assembles a unique visual language that cannot be categorized by any isms. His artistic practice appears uncompromising and incompliant, including sculptures, photography, body art and happenings, which all in their eclectic manner intend to irritate and fool the viewer. Since his mid-20s, at the end of the 60s, the artist began photographing himself and decided to turn his own person into the protagonist of his creations because all perceptions are bound to subjective experiences. Thus, he not only remains faithful to his investigations on identity, the physical body, emotions, longings, and illusions but also explores the social and ontological side of being in the world.
Read MoreIn his experimental approach, Lüthi expands the traditional conventions of self-portraiture. He elevates it to a grand gesture and creates projection spaces for emotional stimulations while putting them slightly off through humorous details, everyday curiosities, or proximity to kitsch. Finally, with all self-depictions, the artist refers to nothing less than the "conditio humana", asking, are we unique or are we not?
Urs Lüthi used to hold a chair at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. Among many other national and international exhibitions, he participated at documenta VI in Kassel in 1977, and represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale in 2001. His work is in numerous public and private collections including Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; moma New York, US; SFMOMA, San Francisco, US; Fondazione Brodbeck, Catania, Italy; Museum Arte Moderna Roma, Rome, Italy; Museum Dell’ Novencento, Milan, Italy; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland; Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland; mamco, Geneva, Switzerland; Kunsthaus Aarau, Switzerland; Kunstmuseum Zürich, Switzerland; Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland; Museum Chur, Switzerland; Musée Rath Genève, Geneva, Switzerland; Museum Winterthur, Switzerland; Museum Stuttgart, Germany; Kunstmuseum Hamburg, Germany; Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg, Germany; Museum Kassel, Kassel Germany; and others.
Text courtesy Galerie Urs Meile.
