Photo of Nicolas Party by Axel Dupeux. Photo of Tobia Bezzola by Christian Scholz.
Artist & Curator Walkthrough: Nicolas Party & Tobia Bezzola on ‘Franz Gertsch. Presence’
On the opening night of ‘Franz Gertsch. Presence,’ an exhibition devoted to the distinctive vision of the late Swiss artist, please join us for a walkthrough with artist Nicolas Party and the exhibition’s curator Tobia Bezzola, Director of the Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana (MASI) in Lugano.
‘Franz Gertsch. Presence’ brings together eight monumental works spanning Gertsch’s career, elucidating the ways in which he transformed photographic imagery into hyperrealist paintings and woodcuts. What appears at first glance to be a project of exacting replication emerges instead as a deeply investigative practice––one that enshrines the poetry of fugitive moments through a disciplined material language.
This event is free, however, reservations are recommended.
Bromelia (Guadeloupe), 2012 © 2025 Franz Gertsch AG. Courtesy Estate of Franz Gertsch. Photo:Dominique Uldry
Franz Gertsch in his studio.
About Franz Gertsch
Franz Gertsch (1930 – 2022) was a Swiss artist internationally renowned for his monumental photorealistic paintings and woodcuts. From the time of his international breakthrough in 1972 at documenta 5 in Kassel he created a wide range of paintings and graphic works, which gained acclaim for their precise, large-scale depictions of everyday life, meticulously based on photographs. His work explores the passage of time, perception and surface, blurring the line between photography and painting. In the 1980s, he developed a groundbreaking wood cut technique using hand-crafted tools and natural pigments, creating monumental, monochrome prints unlike any other in contemporary art. Gertsch represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale in 1999, and his influence endures through the Museum Franz Gertsch in Burgdorf, Switzerland.
About Nicolas Party
Born in Lausanne in 1980, Party is a figurative painter who has achieved critical admiration for his familiar yet unsettling landscapes, portraits, and still lifes that simultaneously celebrate and challenge conventions of representational painting. His works are primarily created in soft pastel, an idiosyncratic choice of medium in the 21st-century, and one that allows for exceptional degrees of intensity and fluidity in his depictions of objects both natural and manmade. Transforming these objects into abstracted, biomorphic shapes, Party suggests deeper connections and meanings. His unique visual language has coalesced in a universe of fantastical characters and motifs where perspective is heightened and skewed to uncanny effect.
About Tobia Bezzola
Since 2018, Dr. Bezzola has served as Director of the Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana( MASI) in Lugano, guiding the institution through a phase of major renewal. During his tenure, MASI has realized around fifty exhibitions and undertaken a comprehensive restructuring of its organizational and curatorial framework, consolidating its position as one of Switzerland’s leading art museums. Born and raised in Bern, he was familiar with Franz Gertsch and his work from childhood. A first collaboration took place in 2006 in the context of an exhibition on European Pop Art. Bezzola curated exhibitions of Gertsch’s work for and with the artist at the Kunsthaus Zürich (2011), the Museum Folkwang (2015), and MASI Lugano (2019). From 2013to 2023, he served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Franz Gertsch Museum.
