Caro Niederer

The starting point for the work is often a photograph or personal snapshot. A fundamental theme is the transformation of a photographic image through its replication into other media. The photographic images are re-worked as paintings and also fabricated as silk carpets in China. The current exhibition focuses on several carpets, presented alongside three large paintings. By transferring her source material into other media, the artist provokes unexpected interpretations from the viewer. Rather than being self-contained art objects, Niederer’s paintings act as open gestures existing between the process of their production and subsequent journeys into worlds beyond the studio. The transformation of ordinary experience continues to be a central theme in the work as Niederer unlocks the relationship between photography and memory. In recent years Niederer has produced a number of paintings using various umber tones to recall early photography and images from another era. These particular paintings are then subjected to another layer of removal by being photographed in situ in a collector’s home or office. For this exhibition Niederer has changed her palette and returns to working in colour for the fist time in many years. As with the paintings, the images used in Niederer’s carpets undergo a similar process of re-interpretation. Hand-made in a factory near Shanghai, her carpets are fabricated from original source material in such a way that they are subjected to a form of touristic exoticism. In the basement Caro Niederer shows a series of four-colour silk-screen prints. The seven prints are based on private imagery and allow the viewer an insight into the artist’s personal photo archive. The cool, industrial nature of the silk-screen technique generates a provocative contrast to the warm, domestic character of the carpets in the main gallery.

By reproducing her motifs over time, Niederer creates delicate connections between her works. She describes this self-reflexivity in an interview with Felicity Lunn: “My practice is like an open spiral that moves with time. My work revolves around the subject of memory and the question of what remains that is valuable”. Caro Niederer (b. 1963) continues to live and work in Zürich, Switzerland. Recent solo exhibitions include CAC Málaga (2006), Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld (2006), Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2005), Ikon Gallery, Birmingham (2005) and Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (2004). Niederer is the recipient of the Manor Art Prize of the City of St. Gallen (2004).