John Armleder (born 1948) is a Swiss performance artist, painter, sculptor, critic, and curator. His work is based on his involvement with

Fluxus Fluxus was an international, interdisciplinary community of artists, composers, designers, and poets during the 1960s and 1970s who engaged in experimental performance art, art performances which emphasized the artistic process over the finishe ...

in the 1960s and 1970s, when he created

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

pieces, installations, and collective art activities that were strongly influenced by

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and Extended technique, non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one ...

. However, Armleder's position throughout his career has been to avoid associating his artistic practice with any type of manifesto.

Early life and education

Armleder was born in Geneva, as the son of a hotelier (owners of Le Richemond). He studied at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Genève (1966–67), and at the Barry Summer School at Glamorgan College of Education in Barry, Wales (1969).

Work

In 1969, with Patrick Lucchini and Claude Rychner, Armleder founded the ''Groupe Ecart'' in Geneva, from which stemmed the Galerie Ecart and its associated performance group and publications. The ''Groupe Ecart'' was particularly important in Europe during the 1970s and 1980s, not only through its activity as an independent publishing house, but also because it introduced in Switzerland—and sometimes in Europe—a large number of notable artists, including

Joseph Beuys Joseph Heinrich Beuys ( ; ; 12 May 1921 – 23 January 1986) was a German artist, teacher, performance artist, and Aesthetics, art theorist whose work reflected concepts of humanism and sociology. With Heinrich Böll, , Caroline Tisdall, Rober ...

and

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (;''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''"Warhol" born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol ...

. Armleder was later associated with the '' Neo-Geo'' artistic movement in the 1980s. Armleder frequently examines the context in which art is displayed and views the exhibition as a medium in its own right. Since the 1990s, he has created installations, paintings, wall paintings, sculptures and what he calls ''Furniture Sculptures''—installations that usually juxtapose furniture with monochrome or abstract paintings, either literally on the furniture or a canvas hanging nearby. His work has varied greatly in form, and has, since the beginning, used chance as a method of producing the final forms that pieces take, much like

. He often uses a dense scenographic hanging style, putting individual works into proximity and creating installation-like exhibitions.

Exhibitions

In 1986, Armleder represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale. In 2004, a retrospective exhibition of his works on paper was shown at the Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland, and later traveled to the ICA in Philadelphia. In the winter of 2006–2007, a large exhibition including works from all eras of his career was shown at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (Mamco) in Geneva. In April 2013, Armleder had a solo show at the Dairy Art Centre in London.

Collections

Armleder's work is held in the permanent collections of numerous museums including the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, the Staedel Museum, the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, New York,

KANAL - Centre Pompidou KANAL - Centre Pompidou is a museum for modern and contemporary art located in Brussels, Belgium, near the Brussels–Charleroi Canal, in the former Citroën Garage buildings. The opening is scheduled for 28 November 2026. During the renovat ...

, Brussels, among other institutions.

Notes

External links

Documentation of recent John Armleder exhibitions

John Armleder
Venice Exhibition
John Armleder, "About Nothing" ICA Philadelphia
review by Steven Stern, ''Frieze'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Armleder, John M 1948 births Living people Artists from Geneva Postmodern artists Swiss installation artists Conceptual artists Swiss contemporary painters Swiss performance artists Swiss contemporary artists