ART CITIES:Basel-Zilla Leutenegger

From the early start of her career the focus of Zilla Leutenegger’s  artistic repertoire is the repeated discourse of space, the person in relation to space and the relation between space and light: drawings grow out of the plain and merge with sculptures and video projections into three-dimensional installations. In the past years, this repertoire has been increasingly extended by the monotype as a medium, through whose technique the colour surface in its intensity and combination possibility becomes the new protagonist. 

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Museum Tinguely Archive

In the exhibition “SPACES BETWEEN” with works by Zilla Leutenegger, one of the most defining voices in Swiss contemporary art, ten multimedia installations and three monotypes are presented in various places around the Museum Tinguely, where her quiet, poetic video drawings meet the mechanical dynamism of Jean Tinguely’s machines. Sharing the space like “ten- ants in an apartment block”, they create a dialogue that is neither competitive nor har- monic, each achieving a forceful presence.

In order to grant insights into this playfully poetic, mysteriously in- habited architecture, all of her works (with the exception of the monotypes) were modified and adapted to the specific conditions at Museum Tinguely. “ZillaGorilla” (2021/2026), for example, who at Bündner Kunstmuseum sat under a flight of stairs, now cowers in one of the huge crates used to transport Tinguely’s sculptures. “In Plein Soleil” (2026), the protagonist Zilla dangles her legs not from a diving board but from a crossbeam high up in the space. In “Sit&Wait” (2020) a cat waits in front of a bannister, prompting us to ask what exactly it is waiting for. Such traces and shadows of a living presence can be found all round the museum.

Born in 1968 in Zürich, the artist has established herself as an important figure within the con- temporary art scene in Switzerland. Her work focuses on the merging of analog and digital media: reduced wall drawings are layered with projected video elements, the static spatial situation brought to life by the shadow of a moving figure. She uses these carefully constructed installations for a profound form of storytelling. In many works, her alter ego “Zilla” (filmed, drawn, or digitally generated) performs everyday activities like reading, waiting, or looking out of the window. With these subtle narratives the artist elicits the viewer’s own memories

Photo: Zilla Leutenegger, Papa Bear Chair, 2021, Diptych, oil on cotton paper, monotype Dimensions: 118,5 × 160 cm, Courtesy Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich, Paris Photo Credit: Sebastian Schaub © Zilla Leutenegger

Info: Curator: : Andres Pardey, Museum Tinguely, Paul Sacher-Anlage 1, Basel, Switzerland, Duration; 23/9/2026-7/3/2027, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun 11:00-18:00, Thu 11:00-21:00, www.tinguely.ch/