HUBER.HUBER

Copyright 2023
huber.huber and the authors

huber.huber UNIVERSEN
EDITION PATRICK FREY_showcase

MiCamera Milano (IT)
11.04. - 26.05.2012

The first solo exhibition by huber.huber in Italy. Among the most distinguished voices in contemporary Swiss art scene, Markus and Reto Huber work together since 2005. In the last years they have produced collages and drawings, but also sculptural works and installations. 2011 is the year of the publication of Universen, a wonderful monography in form of artist's book published by Patrick Frey.

The exhibition presents a selection of collages from the large group of works titled MIKROUNIVERSUM (2005-2011) and a selection of sculptures from the series Hidden Track:Vogelhäuser (2006/7 NYC).

MIKROUNIVERSUM includes about 800 works produced between 2005 and 2011, most of them small collages and ink drawings. Their work revolves around the ambivalent relationship between civilization and nature and at the same time addresses social topics and central themes of the human collective such as hope, fear, faith and failure. With quiet irony and a touch of the comic, using old photographs, pages from scientific books, and clippings from newspapers and magazines, the artists transplant cut-out figures, animals and insects to atmospheric natural settings like snowy mountains and mysterious canyons. huber.huber skillfully integrate the diverse fragments into their compositions and at the same time undermine traditional forms of both narrative and pictorial representation. In many of these works the figures find themselves not only out of place but also exposed, as fascinated observers or embattled antagonists, to oversize or even life-threatening insects and other creatures. Drawing the viewer into a realm of inversions and contradictions, Mikrouniversum becomes a humorous and satirical experience of the interplay between men and nature, of reality and pictorial construction.

The installation Vogelhäuser (birdhouses) that will also be on view at MiCamera, reflects huber.huber’s fascination for the hidden beauties and inconsistencies of everyday life. huber.huber’s birdhouses are effectively three-dimensional collages made of found objects and industrial garbage duct-taped together with apparently childlike simplicity. While the structures still serve their original purpose as temporary housing for birds, the artists have drawn the meticulous craft tradition from which they are derived into the realm of absurdity. The project started 2005 in the city of Zurich as a reaction to the fact that people were throwing away a lot of quality material, at the same spending money to buy new birdhouses.

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