The artist presents three different bodies of works; they complement each other on the one hand and are antagonistic on the other. In the first room of the gallery, opening up through large windows towards the street, Anna Amadio has placed two large, golden relief painting and has put in the middle of the room with a grand gesture on a mirrored pedestal a small sculpture called For Winners, made of branches, golden pigments and glue. The golden room is coined for winners. Winners are decorated with golden medals. The title allows further questions and references: Who are the winners? Is the artist meant, having realized an exhibition, or the visitors of the show "For Winners"?

In the exhibition For Winners the notion of "Kunstwollen", Anna Amadio's inner aim and necessity to produce art, emerges. In some telling remarks the artist throws light on the production of her most recent sculptural works, shown in the central room of the gallery. The sculptures are a reaction to a group of still lifes, presented for the first time 2010 in an exhibition in Cologne. In the show For Winners this body of works is represented exemplarily with two works From Lebak to Sesann Number 9 and Number 10. Anna Amadio has introduced deliberately through their fabrication – as a conceptual counterpoint to the idea of the nature morte – a time factor: Through the vacuum process of the wet images the completion, the drying of the colours, is delayed. The slow drying of the colours causes that the images are gently changing and stay in constant flux. The nature mortes morph into moving images. Several factors determine the appearance of the final product; the mixture of the colours, the pressure inside the painting, the force of gravity, the ambient temperature all these points have an effect on the still lifes. The precise moment of the completion of the paintings is ambiguous and for each image different.

This "floating" experience urged Anna Amadio to set points, create precise moments in time. The artist aimed for an end of all contingency. Therefore the idea and concept of the point became prominent in her work. As a form the point is the most complete and legible sign. The point stands at the end of a sentence. But he can also stand at the beginning of a discussion and lead an argumentation. Points are being given, distributed, discarded and reproached. They can express a scope of meanings: Points can be strong or weak. A point can be made factually or emotionally. The point expresses something, pushes something away or covers something. A point can be strong, but he is also manipulable, or can be classified as less important. The point has its value. The more and the bigger the point is, the more it gets lost in the space and is not readable anymore as the point of departure: It dips, bends and pushes towards its carrier. The point falls off its base and mingles with other, smaller points and surfaces. These lost points – the surfaces having lost their previous point form – gain in return colour force and formability. They are flexible, smooth, sociable and communicative. Without disclaiming their provenance they have reduced their duty to score.

In the sculptural works of Anna Amadio the freestanding or grouped small, medium or large points execute a pressure on the carrier of the colour points. The weight of the round blobs pushes the branches towards the floor; they become a burden. In the execution of both the pointed sculptures and the still lifes questions of gravitation and spatial orientation are decisive. In the group of still lifes Anna Amadio applied the subject horizontally and positioned them afterwards vertically. In the new sculptures the artist attached the points on both sides of the lying branches horizontally. Gravitation co-determines the form. The present works are therefore not only subject to the interventions of the artist but have been deliberately committed to physical procedures.

Text Etienne Lullin

Photos Gallery Lullin+Ferrari, Zurich