F rom 5 October 2007 to 13 January 2008 the Kunsthaus Zurich shows 90 paintings of Félix Vallotton. Swiss Avant-gardes’ also working in the circle of the Nabis artists differs from his contemporaries by ironical and society-critical topics. Thereby he neither avoided cartoon illusions nor he protected the light of the civil idyll. In many works already formal elements are reminiscent, which should become important in the surrealism, in the new objectivity and in the metaphysical painting.
Felix Valletta (1865-1925) is considered as an intelligent observer of its time. He only by marriage became part of the Bourgeoisie and dealt critically and ironically with civil conventions. His razor-sharp "Body Portraits", which jump over the border of the bearable for his contemporaries, made him an internationally considered artist. Born in Lausanne born, he studied in Paris and operated some years in the circle of the group of artists of Nabs. He worked as an illustrator for avant-garde magazines and wrote pieces, which are carried by biting sarcasm and black humour like sometimes his art was. At the exhibition in the Kunsthaus Zurich the focus is on those paintings, which irritate today and at that time the visitors.
INTERIEUR AND ADULTERY
His symbolic picture language moves him close to the psychoanalysis - in particular, if it concerns the relationship of the two sexes, as in the painting "La visite" (1899). This scene seems to be cut from a society-critical play of Ibsen or Strindberg. It shows, how a lady of the society allows herself to visit the apartment of her lover. Beside freezingness and static these interior scenes like others are characterised by a crackling tension.
EXPOSING WITH PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEW
The emphasis of the selection lies on act pictures, which show women in representative environments. Valletta’s blunt representation of the female body - gentle squinting, two differently formed chests or a deep hair beginning - disconcerts many of his contemporaries. As one of the few avant-gardes he got inspired by the picture identification of the classicists, but deviates himself from them: cool and relentless his view of the body, more synthetically his colour and more natural his figures, which departed in attitude and proportion from the ideal. A slope for deformation? To all only the attempt to lend to the female figure an individual shape.
IRONY IN LARGE SIZE
For the first time detailed large sized paintings are presented, which refer to the mythology. Vallotton calls them "grand machines", using well-known topics like "Persée tuant itself le dragon" (1910) and interpreting them new. He equips figures with modern make-up and hairstyles, lets the dragon become a crocodile, and in place of a traditional beautiful victim chained to a rock, he places an emancipated woman of the 20th century, who witnesses with a grumbling expression the fight of the man and the monster nearly indifferently. In the society of its time the fight of the sexes was current, but covered by conventions. The effect is even more violent, if Vallotton undresses it in the picture and represents it so suddenly.
MAGIC REALISM IN LANDSCAPE AND STILL LIFE
Harmless has been ever the kind of the Still Life, which is likewise represented. But with Vallotton even these are from a strange artificialness. Beside the "Poivrons for rouges" (1915), bright-polished on a virgin white table presented, is a red stained knife. Is it blood or only a reflection of the Pepperoni? Vallotton reveals and veils at the same time. Empty landscapes from clearly defined colours surfaces and sudden light dark contrasts jump into the visitor’s eye. What for the impressionists still were holy - the light, the nature and the scientific dismantling of the spectrum of the colour - Vallotton moves it from the field of vision of the viewer. It dissected his opposite with looks and covers the articles, for which he prepares a stage, with his own mood. In technology and production he thereby anticipates formal elements of the surrealism, the new objectivity and the Pittura Metafisica.
EXHIBITION HISTORY AND CATALOG
After over forty years this is for the first time a single exhibition, which brings Félix Vallotton near to the public as an important symbolists at the start of modern trend of Swiss Art. With his important work he has been already for a long time represented in the collection of the Kunsthaus Zurich. Here in 1909 his first single exhibition took place, to which the youth did not have access to, due to the scandalous nudes. The Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft acquired its first picture directly from that exhibition. Since then over 20 further paintings were added. These are supplemented through over 70 considerable loans from important Swiss and international museums and numerous, works rarely shown from private property. The exhibition is to be seen until January 13th 2008 in Zurich. It is hold in trust by the director of Kunsthaus Zürich, Christoph Becker and the art historian Linda Schaedler and moves afterwards to the Hamburger Kunsthalle (15th February until 18th May 2008).
Additional information in German, French and English are displayed on the website of the exhibition and in the catalog "Félix Vallotton. Idyll at the abyss" with essays of the curators, 208 pages, 90 coloured illustrations, available in the museum shop for CHF 49. - And in the book trade (publishing house Scheidegger & Spiess).
Sponsored by Banca del Gottardo.
EVENTS
From 24th October to 21st November the adult education centre Zurich and the Kunsthaus Zurich organizes together a lecture course to Félix Vallotton (www.vhszh.ch). In the museum Villa Flora in Winterthur 2008 the exhibition "Félix Vallotton takes place from October 6th 2007, which lights up the collecting activity of the patron family of Hahnloser and their friendship with Félix Vallotton (www.villaflora.ch).
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