Jānis Avotiņš: (Suzie Q Zürich)

Rüdiger Schöttle and Birgid Uccia / Bob van Orsouw are pleased to announce the opening of the project room "Suzie Q", which they will manage in collaboration. This new platform offers the possibility to present young international positions as well as to carry out projects that complement and enhance our galleries' mutual programs. Every six weeks the room will change under the alternating curatorship of Rüdiger Schöttle and Birgid Uccia / Bob van Orsouw. As the curtain-raiser, Rüdiger Schöttle will present the young Latvian artist Janis Avotins from Riga. Following this, further exhibitions are planned with artists like Simone Shubuck, Thomas Helbig and Björn Dahlem.

Works by Janis Avotins, born 1981 in Latvia, have for several years attained international recognition and been represented in famous collections such as the Hort Collection in New York, the Rubell Family Collection in Miami, the Collection Plum in Aachen and the Collection Olbricht in Essen.

His works on paper with their fine brushwork often tell of human figures that vanish in the vaguely defined picture space and then turn up again. Blurred contours and low-key coloration underline this theme and allow an emotional atmosphere of loneliness and alienation as well as the impression of stillness to arise, all of which recalls Caspar David Friedrich. The paint is applied so delicately that the picture support almost shines through, a feature that is essential to our experience of the work.

In his newest works Avotins takes on, among other themes that of women. Inspired by the oval shape of medallions - which in the Renaissance often carried portraits of Roman emperors - the artist formulates the mimetic function of art in a new way.

(Bettina Meier-Bickel)