Precision and Madness: Swiss Art from Hodler to Hirschhorn (Non-mint)

Hardcover | 23 x 30 cm | 160 pp

Hatje Cantz | 2008 | 9783775719636

Precision and Madness tracks the broader movements of twentieth-century Swiss art, and the individual artists behind them. The book sets the famous Swiss tendency toward precision and order alongside the tendency toward obstinacy and chaos, pairing canonical works with later work.

Provocative pairs include Max Bill and John Armleder, Ferdinand Hodler and Urs Lüthi, Alberto Giacometti and Rémy Zaugg, Louis Soutter and Martin Disler, Robert Müller and Sylvie Fleury, Paul Klee and Silvia Bächli, Adolph Wölfli and Ugo Rondinone. Tensions emerge between the focused and the expansive, over everyday life in the Swiss state, and naturally over the mountains. Precision and Madness is of interest on its own analytic terms, and as an excellent overview of the country’s art since 1850.