// Remy Zaugg’s 1, 2, 2003 is a silkscreen print from 1993 that overlays bold, typographic text onto a city map, creating an interaction between visual and textual elements. The text, in large, blocky letters, lists various urban features in German, such as windows, city, bridge, river, and self-portrait, floating across the detailed map. Zaugg’s work plays with perception and memory, using familiar words to evoke a personal and fragmented narrative. The map serves as a structured background, grounding the abstracted text in a specific yet generalized urban landscape, encouraging viewers to reflect on space, identity, and language.
Rémy Zaugg (Switzerland, 1943–2005) was a conceptual artist whose work explored perception, language, and the act of seeing. Known for his text-based paintings, Zaugg questioned how visual and linguistic elements shape understanding. His multidisciplinary approach included architecture and urban planning, making him a significant figure in contemporary art and theory.
Silkscreen Silkscreen is a printmaking method that uses a screen made of silk or other mesh fabric. The screen is treated with a substance that blocks ink in certain areas, allowing ink to pass through only in the desired sections. Each color in the print requires a separate screen.
// Remy Zaugg’s 1, 2, 2003 is a silkscreen print from 1993 that overlays bold, typographic text onto a city map, creating an interaction between visual and textual elements. The text, in large, blocky letters, lists various urban features in German, such as windows, city, bridge, river, and self-portrait, floating across the detailed map. Zaugg’s work plays with perception and memory, using familiar words to evoke a personal and fragmented narrative. The map serves as a structured background, grounding the abstracted text in a specific yet generalized urban landscape, encouraging viewers to reflect on space, identity, and language.
Rémy Zaugg (Switzerland, 1943–2005) was a conceptual artist whose work explored perception, language, and the act of seeing. Known for his text-based paintings, Zaugg questioned how visual and linguistic elements shape understanding. His multidisciplinary approach included architecture and urban planning, making him a significant figure in contemporary art and theory.
To perceive is to engage in a dialogue; the painting asks, and our gaze attempts an answer.
- Remy Zaugg
Remy Zaugg was an artist from Switzerland. He was educated in Basel, at the School of Art. He created art in both Switzerland and France. He established his studio in France and created and exhibited art there as well. His studio is notable because it was designed by Herzog & de Meuron, who were awarded the Pritzker Prize for the studio based on its innovative overhead lighting. Their concept subsequently influenced the architects’ work on the Tate Modern in London. Remy Zaugg is known best for his precise typographical paintings. He composed works which included chromatic backgrounds with short lines of text in English, French, or German set over them. Some have fluorescent colors which clash, while others are comprised of monochromatic color palettes. He created silkscreen prints on aluminum and works on paper. Notable examples of his work include Ein Blatt Papier II (SOP 205), 1973-1985, which is made of cotton stretched onto a frame and paper mounted on it. The work is a silkscreen with pencil, oil and synthetic varnish. His work, Ich, ich sehe Dich. 1998, a silkscreen on aluminum with varnish, is one example of his ongoing concern with the human conditions of blindness and seeing. Zaugg was also a sculptor, an urban analyst, an architectural designer, art curator, and author of several texts for artists and art historians. For this reason, he is known as a philosopher as well as an artist; due to his focus on the importance of proper spaces for artists to share their work with the public.
Contemporary art refers to avant-garde or innovative art created in the recent past or present day. The exact starting point of contemporary art varies depending on the institution, often tied to the founding year of museums or galleries that showcase the style. Contemporary art is characterized by its focus on current ideas, diverse media, and the exploration of new concepts and techniques.