Between Painting and Object

Andreas Christen (1936-2006) is among the most significant Swiss artists and at the same time is one of the most important representatives of Swiss product design. Haus Konstruktiv (The Foundation for Constructive and Concrete Art) is now exhibiting the first broad retrospective dedicated to him, with not only a comprehensive presentation of the artistic œuvre from the late 1950s to his late works from 2004/2005, but also showing some of his most important design products. This presentation of Christen's overall artistic development clearly reveals how he worked consistently with the same artistic-aesthetic attitude in both fields, art and design.

Originally trained as a window decorator Andreas Christen soon found his real field of activity. Hans Fischli – artist, architect, and director of what was then the Kunstgewerbeschule Zurich (School of Applied Arts) – enabled Christen, who was highly talented and ambitious, to complete a course of education which until then had not even existed. Between the years 1956 and 1959, Christen was the first and only student in a newly established class for product form. And already in 1959, he began to work from his own office as an independent industrial designer.
In the special environment of the 1950ies and 1960ies, characterised by a lively interaction with the possibilities of artistic influence on the everyday, Andreas Christen developed his own particular double existence as artist and designer. Though he consistently and carefully kept both activities separated, comparing Christen's artistic work with his design work, reveals that the two fields, with their minimalist conception, have a lot in common. It is the simplicity of the means, the precision of the aesthetic solutions, and simultaneously the high degree of sensibility which both his artworks and his objects emanate.

Alongside Christen's subtle artworks some of his most important furniture can also be seen in his solo exhibition. With the governing theme of ‘Lifeworlds’, we exhibit objects such as Andreas Christen's stackable polyester bed, his shelf system (which has long since become a classic), his lamp, and also his mailbox, which as of now will replace our old mailbox to the left of the entrance to the museum.
In the 1970s, Andreas Christen, together with company director Ernst Schweizer, designed a mailbox which irrevocably changed the appearance of Swiss streets and residences. Christen himself mentioned it in 1994, in the magazine “Hochparterre”: "Probably the best thing I have made was a standard mailbox for the company Schweizer in the seventies which is still on the market today."
The stackable bed is also available again: the company Scobalit AG, based in Winterthur, is reissuing an edition of 15 plastic stackable beds based on the original 1960 design, and these can be purchased in Haus Konstruktiv during the exhibition.
But also the collaboration between Andreas Christen and Lehni AG is a special kind of success story. From the mid-1960s onwards, most of the designs for the Lehni AG collection were produced by Christen. In an unparalleled manner, a trend-setting and engaging collaboration had developed between a company and an artist. On their website, the company makes a clear statement about Christen's designs: "Thanks to its clear language of forms, its diversity, and its adaptability, our aluminium furniture endures the changing course of time, and times of change."
We will exhibit a selection of Christen's most important design objects along with his artworks. In addition, we document the extraordinary artistic language of Andreas Christen's "double existence" as artist and as designer, with texts, sketches and photographs.