Caroline Bachmann

First monograph on Caroline Bachmann, one of Switzerland’s foremost contemporary artists and 2022 laureate of Switzerland’s Prix Meret Oppenheim for art. Text in English and French.

The first book on Caroline Bachmann, one of Switzerland’s foremost contemporary artists.
 
Caroline Bachmann is one of Switzerland’s foremost contemporary artists. Alongside her independent work in painting and drawing, she also formed the artist duo Bachmann Banz with Stefan Banz (1961–2021). Together, they founded the Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp—The Forestay Museum of Art in Cully, Switzerland. In 2013, Bachmann reinvented herself as an artist and turned to classical themes of painting. She engages deeply with the genres of portraiture, still life, and history painting. Her work takes up existential questions of the metaphysical and the sacred, with compositions that strive not for a materialistic grasp of reality, but for a depiction of the spiritual dimension of existence.

This first comprehensive and richly illustrated book traces Bachmann’s extraordinary journey through painting. An essay by French curator Paul Bernard on Bachmann’s landscapes and a conversation between Julie Enckell and the artist reveal a creative self-discovery that is shaped by the ideals of artistic idols such as Marcel Duchamp, Louis Michel Eilshemius, and Arthur Dove. With the courage to reinvent herself through subject, technique, and material, Bachmann proves a fascinating subject of this compelling book.