EL PLAN AZUL – MICHAEL GÜNZBURGER

EL PLAN AZUL

MICHAEL GÜNZBURGER

PROJECTS ROOM

February – March, 2020

Curated by Andrea Hinteregger de Mayo

Michael Günzburgers work has been shown in México City first in 2013 within the group show Superstructures at Arroníz Arte Contemporáneo. Now, he returns after 7 years. 

Andrea Hinteregger De Mayo: The exhibition is called El Plan Azul. We have created a blue room for it and play consciously with this colour. For me it means water/sky – profundity – infinity – deep silence, all this are reflection in your works. What are they for you?

Michael Günzburger: I like blue and its nuances. And there isn’t “the” blue. “Light blue” or “navy blue” are really different. Or just look at the sky: I feel dazed when trying to point them out, and eventually I have to give up. And that makes me calm.

El Plan Azul is word play: there the blues, the blue house, and there is that printing technique for plans called blueprint. 

AHDM: In your œuvre, it’s all about drawing and lines. No matter which medium you use, be it installations, prints, photography or beyond. What makes you so dedicated to it?

MG: A stroke is one of the simplest gestures a person can make. It is the trace of a movement and it’s many things: symbol, image, plan, writing or other things. And this is exactly what interests me: this simultaneous and contagious juxtaposition that vibrates.

AHDM: Please tell me something about your monotypes. How were they created?

MG: With Masterprinter Thomi Wolfensberger I built a printing press for large format motifs of 150 x 250 cm. For this we worked in a greenhouse near Zurich. In order to get to know the machines we built, we printed various materials, also including plants from the greenhouse. Over time, we got a better grip on the various parameters, so that we don’t just have simple monotypes here in El Plan Azul, but traces of a huge range of experimentation of colour application and subtraction, as well as engravings and traces of movements of the objects on the paper. This is the way I like to work best: process-oriented, not aiming at one goal, but driven by interest.

AHDM: What is your take on craft in the arts?

MG:Well, art has to be made. That means you have to deal with materials, tools and machines, which all put their friction and opinion into the production. I take this process and setting very seriously.

AHDM: In the second part of the exhibition we show a selection of drawings from the Parts series. What is your point of departure to this setting?

MG: Parts is a series of drawings about mixing and mingling of human bodies and architecture. I am very fond of drafts in architecture, because they serve as a tiny and flat models for big things, but have the potential and ambition to become a big and massive thing. Parts is now counting up to several thousands of drawings, unsorted, selected only for exhibitions. I prefer producing things, selecting and editing is less important to me.

AHDM: How important is the choice of paper for Parts? 

MG: The paper is Chinese and Japanese calligraphy paper. I like the color and transparency of it. And also that it offers resistance: it moves and it changes shape and texture when it is worked. It’s a very sensitive paper.

AHDM: What are your references for Parts?

MG: There are many examples in architects’ drafts: Oscar Niemeyer always drew asses and aestheticized this bluntly in his work. Also, I was deeply impressed by plans of contemporary Bangladesh Architecture I saw in the exhibition Bengal Stream at the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel, or the rudimentary by Donato Bramante Plans from the 15th and 16th Century, showing me an old but very familiar take on Craftmanship and Arts as far as these categories existed at these times.

Michael Günzburgers (1974, lives in Zürich Switzerland) works in many fields of the arts: Be it Institutions, Galleries, Publishing, Public Space or Academic Research. His work has been shown internationally such as in New York, Paris, São Paulo or Berlin. He has participated in many Museum shows in Switzerland such as at the Kunstmuseum Bern, Aargauer Kunsthaus or the Kunsthaus Zurich. Currently he is working on a solo show about his animal print cycle at the Hans Erni Museum in Luzern which will open in May 2020.