Galerie Eva Presenhuber is pleased to present the first collaborative exhibition project with Art in the Park, taking place for the 23rd time in the park of the Hotel Baur au Lac, Zurich. The exhibition features important sculptures by Jean-Marie Appriou, Valentin Carron, Sam Falls, and Mark Handforth. New paintings by Zurich-based artist Louisa Gagliardi are on display in salons I and II inside the hotel.

Jean-Marie Appriou’s (b. 1986 in Brest, FR) sculptures evoke archaic forms and are inspired by contemporary but also mythological and futuristic worlds. His works are often crafted from aluminium and bronze, the design possibilities of which the artist furthers through experimentation with finishes and in combination with other materials, including blown glass. By alluding to familiar forms, be they animal or human, and developing his unique, almost alchemical approach to his source material, Appriou has created his very own mythology.

In his sculptures and collages, Valentin Carron (b. 1977 in Martigny, CH) imitates traditional handicrafts and unknown artworks, as well as stereotypical modern and everyday forms. By appropriating these objects and styles, he questions originality, authenticity, and identity in the globalized world. He reformulates traditional handicrafts, mainly from his Swiss homeland, by substituting natural materials like wood for synthetic materials; conversely, he commissions well-trained craftsmen to create precious works imitating cheap industrial articles.

Concerned with the intimacy of time, the illustration of place, and exploration of mortality, Sam Falls (b. 1984 in San Diego, CA, US) has created his own formal language by intertwining photography’s core parameters of time and exposure with nature and her elements. Working largely outdoors with vernacular materials and nature as a site-specific subject, Falls abandons mechanical reproduction in favor of a more symbiotic relationship between subject and object. In doing so, he bridges the gap between photography, sculpture, and painting, as well as the divide between artist, object, and viewer.

Louisa Gagliardi’s (b. 1989 in Sion, CH) paintings exist as reflections: internally, of artist and viewer, and of the rapid acceleration of technology in our visualized and socialized worlds. Their liminal status, as both digitally rendered images and physically confronting objects, speaks as much to contemporary concerns of self-mediated personas as they do to the compositions and narratives of the classics of art history.

Mark Handforth’s (b. 1969 in Hong Kong) work is centered around the sculptural vocabulary of urban areas and familiar elements of day-to-day life (traffic signs, streetlamps, motor scooters, truck wheels, hydrants, neon tubes, or candles). He adapts them by either remodeling them or by replicating them in an often considerably larger scale—which, in many cases, creates uncertainty as to whether the pieces are ready-mades or not. This is irrelevant: Handforth does not pursue any documentary interests; rather than wanting to reproduce reality, he arranges familiar everyday elements in such a way that they create new points of reference.

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