Heidi Bucher - Mother of Pearl - Migros Museum

Heidi Bucher
(1926-1993)
-
Mother of Pearl
Retrospective
November 13, 2004 – January 6, 2005
The exhibition “Heidi Bucher: Mother of Pearl” at the migros museum für gegenwartskunst is
the first large-scale retrospective of Buchers work since her death. During the 1970s and
1980s, Heidi Bucher (1926-1993) became known for the latex “layerings” that she crafted for
spatial architectures. As well as these layers or “skins”, which represent the core of the
exhibition, the show includes drawings, sculptures and a video performance, together with the
film “spaces are shells, are skins”, by George Reinhart.
“I see the villa for the first time from the terrace. Now, I enter the house. I look at the walls, the doors, the
windows, the ceilings and the floors. I touch them. I peruse them for a long time. I have to get nearer to
everything. I arrive, we arrive at the right time, with gauze. We cover the walls and listen. We peruse the
surfaces and layer them. We cover and uncover. The lived and the past are entangled with the cloth, and
linger there. We slowly loosen the rubber layering, the skin, tugging the yesterday into today.” Heidi Bucher
(1926 – 1993)
Heidi Bucher was born 1926 in Winterthur (Switzerland) and was brought up in a late 19th century
bourgeois villa. After her school education in Teufen, she studied at the Zurich Kunstgewerbeschule
(Academy for Applied Arts) from 1942 until 1946; among her instructors were Johannes Itten and Max
Bill. After graduating, Bucher focused mainly on linear drawings and collages, working as an illustrator
for the Zurich daily Tages-Anzeiger. In the 1950s, she held exhibitions of drawings and silk collages.
During the 1960s, with the collapse of the traditional definitions of “painting” and “sculpture”, many
artists, including Richard Serra, Louise Bourgeois and Bruce Nauman, embarked on a search for new
means of expression, and began experimenting with new materials such as natural latex. Latex played
an essential role in Eva Hesse’s work (1936-1970), as it later did in Heidi Bucher’s.
In 1969, Heidi Bucher lived in Canada for a year, before moving to the West Coast of the USA until
1972. In Los Angeles, she produced, together with her former husband Carl Bucher, her large-scale
foam sculptures Body Shells (1972) and Landings to wear (1972). The portable sculptures enclose
and separate the human subject from its environment, offering a retreat into privacy; their alienating
form is reminiscent of the futuristic fashion of the time. Bucher’s hybrid “clothing sculptures” were
featured on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar. In 1974, back in Zurich, Heidi Bucher began to embalm
clothes, blankets, cushions and other objects with “rubber milk”, and to assemble them into simple
arrangements. The objects all pertained to the private sphere. Her work became a hunt for clues to
her proper existence, an approach that was shared by a number of artists at the time. Bucher began to
examine her own life like a historian. Her layerings are thus closely linked to the “clothing-reliefs”, and
were initiated in the same year, 1974. From 1974 until 1977, Bucher lived and worked in a former
butcher’s shop. Her atelier was situated on the spacious lower floor, which she called Borg. This was
where the first spatial layerings took place. With the Herrenzimmer (“Men’s Room”, 1977/1978)
Bucher returned to her childhood home, the 19th century Winterthur villa. She coated the wood
panelling of the walls and floors with viscous latex. Once this had hardened, she tore off the textilelatex
skins, and embalmed them with mother-of-pearl pigment. As she rubbed in the pigment, the
skins acquired a shimmering, iridescent surface, and also a new “inner life”.
In 1991, Heidi Bucher began layering the Villa Bleuler in Zurich. The villa, built in the 19th century
Italian new-Renaissance style, houses the Swiss Institute for Art Research. In collaboration with the
Institute, Bucher, fascinated by the walls, floors, ceilings, oven flaps and other items, layered the entire
house. In 1993, Heidi Bucher died of cancer in Brunnen (Switzerland).

!INFORMATION!
An exhibition catalogue with essays by Heike Munder, Philip Ursprung and an epilogue by Mayo and
Indigo Bucher will be published in January by JRP/Ringier. A DVD with the film “Räume sind Hüllen,
sind Häute” by George Reinhart will be released by ArtAdventures.
Guided tours:
Sundays, November 21 & 28, December 12, January 9, 3pm
Thursday, December 2, 6pm
A guided family tour at the migros museum für gegenwartskunst, with Brigit Meier, is planned for
Sunday, November 21, at 3pm.
Opening hours:
Tues / Wed / Fri 12 - 6pm, Thurs 12 – 8pm, Sat / Sun 11am – 5pm
The museum will remain closed on December 25, 26 & 31, as well as on January 1.
migros museum für gegenwartskunst
Limmatstrasse 270
8005 Zurich
T. +41 1 277 20 50 F. +41 1 277 62 86
info@migrosmuseum.ch www.migrosmuseum.ch
The migros museum für gegenwartskunst is an institution of the Migros Culture Percentage.
www.kulturprozent.ch