Avant que le verre ne cède (Before the Glass Breaks) is the first monographic exhibition in French-speaking Switzerland devoted to the contemporary Zurich artist Uwe Wittwer (born 1954). The exhibition presents a selection of monumental watercolours, highlighting several emblematic series from his practice.
Fascinated by the mechanisms of perception, memory, and recollection, Uwe Wittwer develops an artistic approach grounded in subtle compositional shifts, image distortions, and symbolic associations that weave together collective and intimate references. Acting as a meticulous investigator, he delves into archival material to uncover fragments of an often troubling past, confronting the darker chapters of history such as Switzerland’s colonial legacy, the destruction of cultural heritage, and the Second World War.
Art history occupies a central place in Wittwer’s thinking. Through an ongoing dialogue with historical works—particularly Renaissance drawings and engravings—he questions his own practice, situated in a fertile tension between appropriation and reinterpretation.
The notions of erasure, rupture, and destruction permeate Wittwer’s work both thematically and formally. By probing the expressive potential and limitations of each medium, he creates powerful images in which memory and apparition, absence and presence, converge.
An exhibition curated by Marie Gaitzsch, Curator of Fine Arts, and Margaux Farron, Assistant Curator.
