Accompanying the first exhibition of outstanding British artist Mark Wallinger’s paintings in Switzerland, this catalogue focuses on his large-scale Action Paintings, complemented by a series of new, polychrome small-scale paintings. Despite their many differences from the works of French Impressionism the collection of the Museum Langmatt is centered around, light and movement remain the central elements here as there. A homage to the term coined by Harold Rosenberg who claimed that for action painters the canvas was not a representation but an extension of the mind itself, these performative works move from image to action. Created by sweeping paint-laden hands across the canvas in active freeform gestures, they make intense reference to the body, intensified by the use of plasticine which creates soft, relief-like effects.

MARK WALLINGER (*1959, Chigwell | Essex) is one of Britain’s leading contemporary artists. Taking part in Young British Artists’ group shows in the 1990s, he gained widespread recognition for Ecce Homo, the first sculpture to occupy the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square in 1999. Wallinger represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2001, and won the prestigious Turner Prize in 2007 for his installation State Britain.