NINO BAUMGARTNER b. Bern, Switzerland EDUCATION Hochschule der Künste, Bern SELECTED RECENT EXHIBITIONS 2010 2009 2008
A.R. Penck / Nino Baumgartner, KATZ CONTEMPORARY, Zürich, Switzerland Hyperactive Summerlab, CAN Centre d’Art Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel Back Yard, Galerie Lucy Mackintosh, Lausanne, Switzerland Full Vacuum, LIVE IN YOUR HEAD, curated by Jeanne Gillard and Laurence Schmidlin, Geneva, Switzerland Landschaft, VISARTE Galerie, Bern Zeit geht vorbei LOGE, Stadtgalerie, Bern Conspiracy, Kunsthalle, Bern When Form Follows Attitude, Galerie ARTREPCO, Zürich No You Couldn’t, Galerie Milieu, Bern Formsachen #5 - Nino Baumgartner, Kunstraum Oktogon, Bern Ein Mass der Dinge, NOMAD, Bern Mentor of a Lightening, Planke / Kasko, Basel, Switzerland
STATEMENT Baumgartner’s oeuvre centers on the topics of tension, statics, movement and gravity, an orientation that displays a strong influence from his past as a skateboarder. His relentless, intuitive examination of spaces and architectural structures, and his exploration of his own physical abilities and constraints including his playful way of using tension and gravity amount to a new urban perspective. Baumgartner generally uses raw materials such as plywood, glass, metal or bricks for his work, and applies them in various artistic forms of expression. His oeuvre incorporates sculptures, drawings, and performances, and he consciously opposes the rigid boundaries between these different media. The artwork Broken Glass III is made of bulletproof glass. A tenuous network of lines and fissures orginating from a heavy blow runs across it. Ink was trickled onto the glass finding its way through the rifts and creating an unpredictable dark pattern. Nino Baumgartner’s involvement with the characteristics of his materials and the consequential possible tensions accentuates a further aspect of his creative process which is outside the control of the artist.