selected works

CHRISTOPH OBERHOLZER -VON TOLNAI DE EN

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Screens / Lightdream - Darkdream

Lightdream – Darkdream underlines themes which trigger hope but are also connected with fears. The scenes are depicted with great contrast. They are carved and painted white in dark bakalised plywood. There are different levels of threads stretched in the frames which form a space between the viewer and the scenes.

Zerreißproben (Tests of endurance)

In the works Zerreißproben (Tests of Endurance), Christoph Oberholzer examines the phenomena of both holding together and tearing apart. The works were created in a time of increasing polarisation in western democracies.

Potentiality / At the Bottom of Reality

In his work Potentiality / At the Bottom of Reality, Christoph Oberholzer was inspired by the work of the physicist H.P. Dürr.

There is no such thing as the smallest building block from which matter is built. This idea, which was the basis of classical "Newtonian physics" up until the 19th century, is considered outdated. Diving deep into the micro-world, one can find – as the basis of our reality – something living, intangible, a kind of bubbling source: potentiality.

Science of evidence based possibillities

Science of evidence-based possibilities comprises a phase of the artist's work over several years. After various stays abroad in Africa as well as in Mexico, he investigates the interface of widely incompatible world views between so-called Third World countries and the Western world.

“Phenomenological science has become homeless. It is an act of poetry when art shelters it.” Christoph Oberholzer 2008

“Looking through glasses shaped by materialism makes it difficult to see and distorts what is seen. It makes it impossible to compare seemingly disparate things and draw analogous conclusions." Christoph Oberholzer 2008

"(…) don't you go polluting my mind with all that stuff about Descartes and those other guys who've come between you and our view of reality.” Mr. von Bonanjo, Alain Mabanckou 2018

The artist and his wife love to roam in the mountains, bivouac at over 2000 meters above sea level and turn to the silence of the stone worlds. In these moments, his interest grew in a landscape-shaping line that runs through the Alps from north-east to south-west, touching the countries of Switzerland, Italy, and Austria. Beginning in the Lower Engadine, it goes through the Upper Engadine and the Bergell to Chiavenna along the Swiss/Italian border to Lugano.

Not having any geological knowledge at the time, he chose this route along a tectonic fault line, the so-called insubric line, for his work : a scroll painting showing a section of the earth's surface from a bird's-eye view with the title “about flying”.

“Also he could be eigi einhamr, as the Teutons said whose scientist Odin still possessed wisdom and could fly.” Hans Peter Duerr, ethnologist (free translation)

The scroll painting "about flying" was exhibited in November 2002 in the Open City-church am Stauffacher in Zurich, installed with the title "Also he could be eigi einhamr (with awakened dream body), as the Teutons said whose scientist Odin still possessed wisdom and could fly."(translated from German)

exhibition view Dienstgebäude 2009, Curated: Stefan Meier

exhibition view Arthall Luzern 2008, Curated: Lillian Fellmann und Andreas Lorenschat

Tamed nature and the unpredictability of our cultural development

The very title of this installation of paradoxical references points to the inversion of the usual notions of reality. At the exhibition opening, the artist lay motionless on an ash carpet, the crocodile skin tied to his back. Visitors could enter the installation on a footbridge and let themselves be touched by the willow branches and reed stalks hanging from the ceiling. On the back wall it was written: "excuse me sir are you crocodile dundee?", a reference to the film character of the semi-wild man who dares to approach the untamed. The crocodile skin is painted in a modern urban design pattern. In this installation, outdated ideas of the future meet contemporary feelings of helplessness and melancholy.

Structures from Memory

The work Structures from Memory deals with architectural structures that were generated by specific ways of living. Different cultures and climatic zones brought forth a great variety of architectural structures. Even if the buildings decay or are used for other purposes, these structures give a good idee of the former way of life. They still shape the identity of the region, even though the way of life - here and there - has changed a lot by the forces of globalization.

Pieces of Wood or Togetherness

Christoph Oberholzer created various works from individual pieces of wood that relate to each other. He uses the raw material of firewood. The logs are hewn with a machete and then painted in several layers with Indian ink. What the individual pieces have in common are the convex surfaces which intersect with sharp edges. Put together, the logs create a new identity of their own, in which the individual plays a subordinate role. The convex surfaces as well as the edges relate to each other and emphasise the spaces in between.

ecHOLos or the unmade

Kunstraum Winterthur ZH + Galerie forum claque, Baden AG

Curated: Hasena, Institut für (den) fliessenden Kunstverkehr, Peter Trachsel

Changed entrance situation. The visitors were connected by telephone to live music from a jetty in Zurich.

Network Guesthouse

Mail-Art Projekt

exhibited: Gallery forum claque, Baden 1994

Sculptures and Installations Tösstal 1993

group exhibition

along the cycle path from Kollbrunn to Turbenthal, Switzerland

Organisation and catalogue design

Organisation: U.Rohr, P.Sidler, Ch.Oberholzer

Catalogue design: P.Sidler, Ch.Oberholzer

Installation on the theme of time

group exhibition

Gallery Puls Art, Winterthur, Switzerland

Structures and Layering in Stone Landscapes

The pictures try to capture the formation as well as the decay of what is seen. The artist focuses on the flow of the rock layers over the millennia.

Physical phenomena

Time and again, Christoph Oberholzer is concerned with the visual portrayal of physical phenomena. He is particularly fascinated by phenomena such as vortex formation, electromagnetic waves, growth processes or smoke development. In doing so, he focuses on the fleetingness of motion sequences.

These works were created against the backdrop of the peculiar mixture of optimistic mood and dystopia that increasingly characterises our everyday life, the news coverage, and the street scenes. Using Indian ink on wet paper, the artist develops a stroke character that takes on a life of its own. He was inspired by research on micro-organisms and their life-sustaining equilibriums and communication potential. The focus on these diverse and dynamic micro-worlds offers a hopeful niche.

longitudinal consideration 1/2, 2/2

(Science of evidence based possibilities)

54 metamorphites from the Tösstaler Nagelflueh, left in their found form,sanded and polished lying on its cherry wood impression

The work, longitudinal consideration, shows metamorphites (transformed rocks), which all went through a geological process, reached greater depths and were strongly pressed, compressed, changed and sometimes even melted again. Transformations take place at depths with temperatures between 200° and 700° C, i.e. at depths between approx. 6 km and 20 km.

The mere fact of the diversity of the stones found relativizes the idea of the Nagelflueh as pressed deposits of the Alpine Mountain formation but suggests the possibility that this deposit is also from previously formed mountains and was then transported to its current location during the Alpine Mountain formation, swirled and there was compacted, dammed up on the edges of the Aar massif.

The metamorphites usually become denser, heavier and more brilliant during their transformation process.

The impressions (footprints) made of cherry wood refer to the history of the stones.

network within slash outside the species boundary

Exhibition 2024

How did life come about?

Until recently, myths from different cultures and Darvin's theory of evolution were on offer. In recent years, however, research has converged on the symbiosis theory, which means that “Surviving often the fittest” does not correspond to the basic concept of our planet.

No, the first creatures to move from the sea to land were lichens, a symbiosis of fungi and algae. Only together were they able to assert themselves in the barren rock world. If you delve into the world of microbes, as has only been possible for a little more than 10 years thanks to the large-scale genome analysis of bacteria and viruses, some chapters of the natural sciences are being rewritten. Fungi and bacteria do not adhere to Darwin's theory of evolution at all. They are not genetically stable and freely and happily engage in genetic exchange across species boundaries, so-called “horizontal gene transfer”.

Ink on wet paper creates dialogue and makes symbiosis visible in its unpredictability.

in dialogue with Bieber 175/50/10 cm

(Science of evidence based possibilities)

Stones lifted from the Töss by the Bieber and laid out along the way (for me) on pear wood boat