Hannah Villiger

Hannah Villiger (1951-1997) was an extraordinary voice in late twentieth-century contemporary art, but her oeuvre came to an abrupt end with her untimely death. She became known above all for her photographic work based on the body. This publication traces a path from the sculptures she created in the 1970s and her little-known drawings to the black-and-white photographs and works with the Polaroid camera that Villiger started making in the 1980s. These fragmentary close-ups of her own body were enlarged via an internegative and mounted on aluminium, either individually or assembled into space-related blocks. The results were radical pictorial inventions that made a unique contribution to the artistic exploration of the self and are still relevant today.

This volume presents the latest research on Hannah Villiger's work, featuring contributions by renowned authors and curators: Yasmin Afschar (co-editor), Emily Butler, Stefanie Manthey, Aïcha Revellat, Madeleine Schuppli (co-editor), Agnieszka Sosnowska, Wolfgang Ullrich; as well as artists and contemporaries of Villiger whose statements provide a personal and refined understanding of her work: Rut Himmelsbach, Daniela Keiser, Claudia and Julia Müller, Katja Schenker, Jürg Stäuble, Beat Streuli. Themes such as the female body, self-image and its perception by others, fluid identities, the fragmentation of the physical body, as well as psychological and aesthetic aspects of the human skin are addressed.

This monograph is part of the series initiated by Muzeum Susch and Skira editore dedicated to the rediscovery of women artists who have been neglected by the main discourses and canons of art history.