In the case of everyday objects – the bicycle, chair, boots – covered with cigarette stubs, a technique that was not just a technique but a theme arose. It was to mean basic to Lüscher’s work. This was the tactic of covering the exterior surface of a preexistent solid object with a soft and fragmented substance. It is a formal device of considerable power, but it is also saturated with content: the ideas of inside and outside, soft and hard, open and closed, pain and pleasure, wounded and healed.
Thomas McEvilley 1995
IL141
Object with stubs 70/33, 1970
Verstummelung 70/33, 1970
Cigarette stubs, glue, Thonet chair, shoes, wooden base
101 x 122 x 80 cm
Exhibitions
Famiglia Artista Manzoni, Soncino 1970
Galerie Visualità, Milano 1970
Galerie Kümmel, Köln 1971
Galerie Arte Arena, Zürich-Dübendorf 1973
Civici musei del castello di Udine 2001
Catalogues
Wiesbaden 1993, p 87, p 91 (ill). Udine 2001 (ill)
Texts
Lüscher 1972, p 46. Tempelmann 1972, pp 77-78. Curiger 1973. Neuburg 1973. Ruperti 1973. Welti 1981, p 48 (ill). Stutzer 1990, p 25. Szeemann 1991, p 215. Händler 1993, p 164. Künzler-Schmidt 1993, p 7. Rattemeyer 1993, p 35. McEvilley 1995. Lüscher 1996, pp 74-76. Kohlmeyer 1997, p 6. Herzog 1999, p 16. Stolz 2014. Vögele 2016, p 19
Photography
Doris Quarella