Basel | ArtRegion: Basel - Oberrhein

von Bartha

Marianne Eigenheer

3. Februar – 25. März 2023

Marianne Eigenheer (1945–2018) was, and still is, a discovery. Much of her work was overlooked or remained untouched in the studio on Birsigstrasse in Basel. It resembles that of a driven woman, a restless spirit, whose work needs to be sorted and revisited, unfortunately without the multitalented pianist, composer, and painter, who died in 2018 and once stated: „Of course, even at the millionth attempt, I will not succeed in getting to everything I want to express, but since every minute of life is again so full of new impressions, I never run out of enthusiasm.“

This palpable passion and suffering in the works and the immediate experience in front of them, is the common thread of the exhibition with unpublished large-format paintings, small as well as exuberant drawings, and sculptural works. The selection is intended to sharpen the views on her diverse oeuvre, which is difficult to divide into groups, styles, or epochs. Contemporaries, as well as the artist herself, struggled for their part with the classification and sometimes even with the understanding of her paintings. „I don’t know if they really understood me, which also caused me to fly back into the forest. (…) Postmodernism was the trend, even for women. It seemed to be going better if you didn’t look closely at the price of the adaptation that artists were willing to pay for it.“ Von Bartha has been working with the Lucerne-born artist since 2017 and now ventures to shed some light on the darkness of the forest.

The new, most comprehensive publication to date ‘A Lifelong Search Along the Lines’, follows the intention of unveiling and mediating Eigenheer’s richly varied oeuvre. It is published in the context of the exhibition by Black Dog Press, in collaboration with the artist’s estate, with contributions by Jonathan Bragdon, Max Dax, Claus Donau, Klaus Honnef, Matylda Krzykowski, Nadine Wietlisbach, as well as essays and texts by Marianne Eigenheer – generously illustrated with color photographs of the artist‘s works.