Muzeum Susch Is Hosting the Largest Exhibition Dedicated to Hannah Villiger in Over 15 Years

Although the Second Wave of Feminism in the 1970s brought changes in the ways women artists are being treated in the art world, by the following decade, the circumstances hadn’t changed that much. Therefore, any sort of empowerment through art was more than welcome, especially in terms of body representation.

Hannah Villiger is one of the artists who made a perplexing body of work throughout the 1980s that still resonates with the same issues. Although she suffered greatly early on due to complications caused by tuberculosis, she has continued to produce and present her work. Villager’s epic photographs, functioning as sort of maps of the artist’s own body, transcended the conventions of classic black-and-white and color photographs and tackled the issues of the ways female bodies are being seen and objectified.

With these large-format works, she made an essential contribution to the genre of self-image within art history. These and other perhaps lesser-known works are currently on view at Muzeum Susch, an institution mainly devoted to female artists, as part of the most extensive presentation of Villiger’s work in the last fifteen years, titled Amaze Me.

Surveying Hannah Villiger

This exhibition contextualizes the practice of Hannah Villiger in terms of contemporary issues by focusing on the representation of the female body and the human physique. This particular nod to corporeality is loosely affiliated with the way artist approached the skin as a signifier of gender, ethnicity, vulnerability, and healing. Whether abstracted or entirely deconstructed, the body exists as a constantly evolving form, meaning it can be either human or non-human.

The Display

The exhibition sheds light on Villiger's entire body of work, spanning from the drawings the artist made in the 1970s to the black-and-white photographs and Polaroid works produced from the 1980s onwards. These enlarged fragments of her own body, mounted on aluminum, are showcased individually or grouped into spatial constellations of up to fifteen square picture panels.

Villiger's works are accompanied by the works of younger contemporary female artists Alexandra Bachzetsis, Lou Masduraud, and Manon Wertenbroek, highlighting the continuity of strong female sensibilities and positions.

Hannah Villiger at Muzeum Susch

The early death of Hannah Villiger in 1997 ended her oeuvre. Nevertheless, her oeuvre left a deep mark in art history. By highlighting new perspectives on the emancipatory work of this seminal Swiss artist, this show highlights the incredible relevance of her works that continue to speak to the same issues today. The exhibition is accompanied by a monograph featuring the latest research on Hannah Villiger’s practice.

The exhibition Hannah Villiger: Amaze Me will be on view at Muzeum Susch in Zerner, Switzerland, until July 2nd, 2023.

Featured images: Installation views of Hannah Villiger: Amaze Me at Muzeum Susch. Courtesy: © Muzeum Susch / Art Stations Foundation; photograph: Federico Sette