ANDREAS CHRISTEN

Andreas Christen (1936 – 2006) is one of the pre-eminent representatives of Swiss art and design – even Donald Judd was inspired by the well thought-out details in Christen’s design solutions. This book documents the first broad-based retrospective of Christen’s work at Zurich’s Haus Konstruktiv, presenting not only his artistic oeuvre from the late 1950s to his last works, but also some of his important design objects, including the stackable polyester bed, the mailbox or his aluminum shelves, a timeless classic.

Christen’s monochromatic white relief pictures, known as Monoforms, have both painterly and sculptural qualities, straddling the genres of wall painting and object. On his handling of the color white, Christen once said in an interview: »White is an extremely complex color. I use white mainly because I want to locate the work as precisely as possible in space. I make use of its possibilities and do not forego anything.«

Editor: Dorothea Strauss, Haus Konstruktiv
Authors: Dorothea Strauss, Gianfranco Verna, Margit Weinberg-Staber, Max Graf