NO; NO; H E P

First monograph

Tobias Madison (*1985, Switzerland) belongs to a generation of young artists who frequently open up the isolated process of artistic creation through the use of cooperative or collective strategies. The roles that he adopts are as wide-ranging as the media in which he works: sculpture, video, projection, computer-generated and assisted painting, audio, text, photography, and scanned images, all of which are process-driven, and full of references and descriptions of found symbols.

This publication mirrors in book form the 2-phase exhibition held at the Kunsthalle Zürich, and reflects the artist’s understanding that an exhibition is not a format limited by space, but the possibility of temporal and physical expansion and intensification. Madison worked with feedback loops and shifts in the exhibition format: the presentation took place at several sites in Zurich—including the artist-run space AP News and the notorious Longstreet Bar—that were connected spatially and conceptually by numerous events; the gallery’s newsletter not only announced the events but also became an ephemeral publication, in which a text by the artist and other contents were disseminated. This material is now included in this book, mingled with a deconstruction of the poster series by artist Mathis Altman (*1987) that publicized the club nights during the exhibition, which were shown in the entrance area of the exhibition space.

The book is the first monograph dedicated to Tobias Madison’s work and is published in the Kunsthalle Zürich series. It includes a newly commissioned text by John Beeson, and two conversations with the artist, one with Beatrix Ruf and one with Bruce Hainley.