Opening hours Zurich Art Weekend 2025:
Friday, 11 am – 9 pm; Saturday, 11 am – 8 pm; Sunday, 11 am – 6 pm

Galerie Eva Presenhuber is pleased to present the group show Troisième Étage on the third floor of Waldmannstrasse, Zurich, showcasing paintings by Joe Bradley, Austin Eddy, Karen Kilimnik, Steven Shearer, and Josh Smith. The exhibition is complemented by a selection of unique furniture pieces by Franz West.

Joe Bradley’s (b. 1975 in Maine, ME, US) versatile painterly oeuvre has suggested allusions to Abstract Expressionism, to Philip Guston, or to Minimal Art, all with a very contemporarily distant, not entirely tangible twist that nonchalantly oscillates between irony and melancholy. Recently, however, Bradley has developed a new visual language that is entirely his own and also sparked a dialogue between his canvases and his works on paper—as if they were nodding to each other.

Since 2018, the painter and sculptor Austin Eddy (b. 1986 in Boston, MA, US) has been reevaluating the dwindling conversations of modern painting in a world juxtaposed somewhere between abstraction and reality. Eddy’s evocative works playfully use brilliant colors, layered textures, vibrant bird motifs, and abstract planes of light, whilst all the while investigating loss and the fleeting passage of time that is the human condition. Perched on the edge of reality, his works are a visual poem celebrating the ephemeral moment that exists only for a second, before flying away into the past.

Karen Kilimnik’s (b.1955 in Philadelphia, PA, US) small-scale paintings and drawings are suffused with her own imaginative ideas and draw viewers into a world of grandeur, humor, and fantasy. Scenes of pastoral landscapes, elven forests, castle exteriors, figures, and horses give the viewer a direct encounter with the unguarded verve of Kilimnik’s wit and her engagement with history, always balanced by her assured sense of color and form.

For over 20 years, Steven Shearer (b. 1968, New Westminster, CA) has worked with a wide range of materials including, print, sculpture, painting, drawing, and collaged found photography. Shearer has become increasingly well known for his adept portraits of figures painted within interior spaces. These portraits recall figures from past music subcultures and art historical paintings and are rendered employing stylistic references from Fauvism and Symbolism to German Romantic Art. Reconfiguring Renaissance systems of perspective, he creates complex perspectival elements within the compositions that animate the viewer’s engagement with his paintings.

Josh Smith (b. 1976 in Okinawa, JP) first gained attention in the early 2000s with a series of paintings of his name, which he later began to unwind to create a series of sharp, colorful, and inscrutable abstract paintings. In recent years, the abstract paintings morphed into more pictorial works of singular subjects such as leaves, fish, skeletons, reapers, and palm trees. These subjects were partially chosen because they can be easily rendered by almost anyone who cares to try. Therefore, the rendering of an image does not over-engage itself with any attempt towards pictorial virtuosity. For Smith, paintings are largely hosts for expression and experimentation.

Franz West (1946–2012 in Vienna, AT) was an internationally renowned sculptor who is considered one of the most influential artists of the past 50 years. He began to develop his works in the 1970s, centered around sculpture but also including drawing and collage. From the 1980s, West focused on art as something to use and communicate with by inventing the Passstücke—Adaptives. These are sculptures that can be touched and worn by the viewer, situating themselves somewhere in between a trap and a supporting device. West referred to them as incarnations of neurosis. In the following years, West produced a significant oeuvre of sculptures made of plaster and Papier-mâché, furniture, collages, and large-scale sculptures, which were often intended for public spaces.

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