Warhol/Cutrone @ Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich - Exhibition curated by James Hedges

Warhol/Cutrone

Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich 

Through September 30, 2025

Warhol/Cutrone, an exhibition at Galerie Gmurzynska in Zurich, curated by James Hedges, juxtaposes Andy Warhol and Ronnie Cutrone, including paintings, drawings, and unique polaroids.

“Ronnie Cutrone was a painter and illustrator known for his Post-Pop imagery featuring cartoon characters like Woody the Woodpecker, Bart Simpson, and Bugs Bunny. Cutrone’s life and career make us remember New York at its creative apex. Reminiscing of another era, Cutrone said, “New York was elegant and sleazy. Now it’s a shopping mall for dot-commers. We need our crime rate back. I want my muggers and hookers back.” - James Hedges 

Andy Warhol and his right-hand man Ronnie Cutrone were the perceived masters of Manhattan in the 1970s and 1980s.

Working in synergistic fashion with Andy Warhol, Ronnie Cutrone helped execute some of the artist’s most iconic silkscreens. The duo’s collaborations countenance: Hand Tinted Flowers (ca. 1972), Invisible Sculpture (1972-83), Drag Queens/Ladies and Gentlemen (1974-75), Oxidation (Piss Paintings) (mid-late 1970s), Sex Parts/Torso (mid-1970s), Hammer & Sickle (1976-1977), Skulls (1976-77), Gems (1978), Shadow Paintings (1979), and Butcher Knives, Guns, Dollar Signs (1982).

With Andy Warhol one special focus of this exhibition is on his unique polaroids. Many of Warhol’s polaroid photographs have never been exhibited before and feature stars such as Grace Jones, Joseph Beuys, Keith Haring, Lou Reed and Candy Darling. Cutrone’s three-dimensional photographs of the Factory, shown publicly as well for the first time ever, give a historic and unprecedented peek into Warhol’s circle.

While with Ronnie Cutrone the focus of this exhibition is on his cartoon-infused painting, sculpture and drawings which shocked the New York scene in the 1980s. These works garnered him major solo shows in the inaugural Post-Pop wave, whilst igniting debates over the sanctity of the American symbols such as the flag and Mickey Mouse. After 1983, when Ronnie Cutrone left Warhol’s Factory, he perused his independent art career which reached great heights, including highly lauded museum exhibitions at the Whitney, the Museum of Modern Art, and the L.A. County Museum of Art, amongst many others.

“One thing I picked up from Andy: say loud and clear because if the WHOLE world gets it, the art world will get it too.” - Ronnie Cutrone 

Artist Ronnie Cutrone

Ronnie Cutrone (10 July, 1948 - 21 July, 2013) worked as Andy Warhol’s preeminent assistant from 1972 to 1982, though his collaborations with Warhol well preceded this. Ronnie Cutrone met Andy Warhol when he was only sixteen years old. Ronnie Cutrone, in 1966, joined the ranks of The Velvet Underground, formed by Lou Reed, John Cale, and Warhol, as a performer/dancer. Three years later, Ronnie Cutrone began writing as a columnist for Warhol’s Interview magazine, lauded for dovetailing reviews on avant-garde art exhibitions and features on celebrities, nightlife fixtures, and even politicians like Nancy Regan.

In 1972, Cutrone’s took up the mantle as Warhol’s apprentice, a post he maintained for the next decade. This was the zenith of Warhol’s international fame, and the Pop Art bastion took Ronnie Cutrone under his wing, entrusting Cutrone to, unlike Warhol’s other assistants, “work on the one thing he cared about the most, which was his art”. Although Ronnie Cutrone was, by this point, already burgeoning as a nascent artist of his own right—having assisted with programming John Giorno’s “Dial-A-Poem” at MoMA in the 1970 “Information” exhibition curated by Kynaston McShine.

Ronnie Cutrone’s responsibilities varied, ranging from conceptualizing Warhol’s subjects, mixing palettes, photographing live models and executing the silkscreen. Indeed, as the two artists ‘artistic relationship matured, the lines of influence became bi-directional. As philosopher, critic, and Warhol expert Arthur Danto observed in his biography, Andy Warhol (2009), “Cutrone played an important role in the later phase of Andy’s artistic career”.

During Cutrone’s time at Warhol’s Factory, he rubbed shoulders with Lou Reed, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Mick Jagger, Grace Jones, Lucio Amelio, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Fred Hughes, VictorHugo, Paul Morrisey, Gerard Malanga, Anjelica Huston, Debbie Harry, Salvador Dali and Alice Cooper, amongst others. After long days and nights of helping Warhol at the Factory, Ronnie Cutrone would frequent artist hubs like Max’s Kansas City, drinking “all night with bob Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, Malcolm Morlye and Robert Smithson” or unwinding at the Mudd Club.

GALERIE GMURZYNSKA

Paradeplatz 2, Zurich

www.gmurzynska.com

Warhol/Cutrone @ Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich, June 14 – September 30, 2025

Christo @ Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich - Nature | Environments - Curated by Lorenza Giovanelli

Christo, Nature | Environments 

Curated by Lorenza Giovanelli

Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich

Through November 20, 2021

“All our projects involve areas, whether in an urban or a rural area, where people live. Jeanne-Claude and I have always been interested in the space that people use […]. We’ve always said that it was wonderful to lend us the spaces that belonged to others.”

– CHRISTO

Galerie Gmurzynska presents “Nature | Environments,” Christo’s third solo exhibition with the gallery.

The exhibition, curated by Lorenza Giovanelli, features collages and drawings dating from the artist’s early projects to the never realized Over the River, and explores Christo’s diverse artistic work within natural environments worldwide.

Starting with Wrapped Coast in 1969 in Australia to the iconic Umbrellas, the incredible Running Fence and the Wrapped Trees at the Fondation Beyeler in Riehen, the works in the exhibition bear witness to Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s often decades long efforts to realize their projects. The meticulous preparation as well as the aesthetic aspects of the collages and sketches show the dedication and work processes behind the implementation of the installations:

“Works on paper can be a combination of photographs, fragments of other projects, technical information […] the drawings reflect the evolution of the project. It doesn’t emerge from my thoughts ‘fully equipped’.”

– CHRISTO

“Taking place simultaneously in Zurich and New York – evoking The Umbrellas project, conceived and realized as a diptych – this exhibition aims to explore the kaleidoscopic variations of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s environmental art and how it dialogued with the ecosystem they set within.” – Lorenza Giovanelli

GALERIE GMURZYNSKA 

Talstrasse 37, Zurich 

www.gmurzynska.com

Zaha Hadid @ Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich - Abstracting the Landscape

Zaha Hadid: Abstracting the Landscape 

Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich 

Through 31 July, 2021 

Zaha Hadid passed away in Miami on March 31, 2016 at the age of 65. On the 5th Anniversary of her death, Galerie Gmurzynska presents an immersive homage to the visionary Architect. 

The shared interests between the gallery and Zaha Hadid for the Russian avant-garde fortuitously crossed paths in 1992 at the monumental exhibition "The Great Utopia," at the Guggenheim Museum for which Zaha Hadid designed the rotunda – the first architect tasked with reimagining the Frank Lloyd Wright architectural icon. From early in her career, her peerless aesthetic was deeply inspired by Kazimir Malevich and the Suprematists, on whom she prepared her graduation thesis in 1976. 

The gallery’s active collaboration with Zaha Hadid from 2010 until her death began with the idea to again combine her knowledge of the Russian avant-garde with her architectural practice, which had advanced deeper since the Guggenheim exhibition. Thus, in 2010, the exhibition "Zaha Hadid and Suprematism" was held at Galerie Gmurzynska’s headquarters on Paradeplatz in Zurich. The exhibition and book, published together with Hatje Cantz, became a global event. This first collaboration with Zaha was followed by many other exhibition projects, including at Art Basel. On the occasion of the important Malevich retrospective held in 2014 at Tate London the star architect was asked to take part in a long documentary about Malevich with the BBC. Part of this documentary included an interview with Galerie Gmurzynska CEO Mathias Rastorfer and Zaha Hadid about Malevich and the nature of architecture and art. 

The final project completely planned by Zaha Hadid was again to show the dramatic development of her architecture in the context of another foundational modern master: Kurt Schwitters. The exhibition architecture was planned entirely by Hadid, and the selection of works by Schwitters was as well rigorously curated by her. Hadid unfortunately died before the opening of the show and left behind an architectural monument remaining unchanged in the Galerie Gmurzynska on Paradeplatz, open to the public. 

The latest exhibition at Galerie Gmurzynska titled "Abstracting The Landscape" was conceived and created with the same team with whom the gallery planned and executed all Zaha Hadid exhibitions since 2010. It has been a fruitful and euphoric collaboration for all involved, for which Galerie Gmurzynska expresses its heartfelt gratitude to the entire Zaha Hadid design and archive team. In this spirit of long-term collaboration and the highest respect for her perpetual vision, historical projects with models and drawings, as well as sculptural objects realized since her passing have been individually selected to be integrated into a custom floor design displaying Hadid’s best traits. The exhibition also features site-specific objects, as well as never-before exhibited designs. 

GALERIE GMURZYNSKA 

Paradeplatz 2, Zurich 

www.gmurzynska.com

___________

Amazonski @ Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich - A selection of works by women artists of the Russian Avant-Garde

AMAZONSKI
Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich
June 8 - September 8, 2019

Galerie Gmurzynska presents “AMAZONKI,” a selection of works by women artists of the Russian Avant-Garde. With this project, Galerie Gmurzynska consolidates one of its main programmatic lines, dedicated since its origins in 1965 to women artists – a pioneering approach for that time.

After putting together several solo shows on women artists, Krystyna Gmurzynska organized the acclaimed exhibition “Women Artists of the Russian Avant-Garde” in 1979, the first ever exhibition to concentrate on the women of the Russian Avant-Garde. More recently, the Malaga branch of the State Russian Museum hosted the well-received show “Graphic works by Russian Women Artists from the collection of Krystyna Gmurzynska,” still on view until September 2019.

The exhibition in Zurich features some of the most remarkable women artists of the Russian Avant-Garde such as Maria and Xenia Ender, Natalia Goncharova, Liubov Popova, Olga Rozanova, Nadezhda Udaltsova, and Varvara Stepanova. The selection of works includes both visual and applied forms of art, from graphic works and theater designs to decorative projects. 

“AMAZONKI” is the Russian word for the mythological “Amazons,” and it was first applied to the female Russian Avant-Garde artists by the Cubo-futurist poet Benedikt Livshits, who described them as “real Amazons, Scythian riders.” An iconic exhibition, entitled “Amazons of the Russian Avant-Garde” was held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1999-2001, to which Krystyna Gmurzynska was invited as the only non-institutional private lender in recognition of her famed 1979 exhibition “Women Artists of the Russian Avant-Garde.”

The work of these pioneering women artists was extremely influential in the world of the Avant-Garde and was highly significant in defining modernism as a whole. There was a remarkable boom in women’s creativity in early-20th century Russia, where the rapid modernization of society changed the status of the female artist and marked the beginning of women’s integration into cultural areas that were formerly the preserve of men only. Never before in the history of Western art had women played such an important role in the formation of new art movements or the redefining and reconfiguration of cultural spaces. 

Their influence can be clearly seen throughout the 20th Century. “AMAZONKI” thus continues with a separate exhibition of the preeminent female artist of Russian origin in the US: Louise Nevelson.

Though the “Amazons” were distinguished by their tremendous energy and a great force of will, they at no time constituted a single, uniform group formed through a common support of “feminist” ideas. Possessing a bright talent, each offered her own vision and direction to the development of Avant-Garde art, playing a vital role in larger artistic circles, where they were as individualistic, productive and exceptional as their male colleagues such as Kazimir Malevich, Mikhail Larionov and Alexander Rodchenko.

GALERIE GMURZYNSKA
Paradeplatz 2, Talstrasse 37, Zurich
www.gmurzynska.com

Wifredo Lam, Fire Tongues at Galerie Gmurzynska, Saint-Moritz

Wifredo Lam, Fire Tongues
Galerie Gmurzynska, Saint-Moritz
February 20 - March 20, 2012

Galerie Gmurzynska announces an exhibition of rare original ceramics by Wifredo Lam in St. Moritz.

WIFREDO LAM (1902–1982) is one of the most distinguished and fascinating artists of the 20th century. He established a form of art that unites Western modernity with African symbols, as well as those from the Caribbean, and thus created his own unique language. Throughout his life Lam kept in touch with all the European avant-garde movements which primarily explored the unconscious in their art: Cubism, Surrealism and CoBrA. Lam was born in Cuba in 1902 as the eighth child of Chinese-born Lam-Yam and Ana Serafina Castilla, a Cuban with African and Spanish roots. In 1938 Wifredo Lam arrived in Paris where he met Picasso, and through him his artist friends Braque, Matisse, Miro, Léger, Eluard and Leiris. Lam also met the Danish artist and co-founder of the CoBrA group, Asger Jorn, in Paris. Jorn, who had turned his hand to pottery, introduced him to the location Albissola Mare on the Ligurian coast in Italy, where Lam later purchased a house and studio overlooking the sea. However, his first efforts with what was for him a new artistic medium remained tentative. Albissola has been well-known since the first half of the 16th century for the manufacture of ceramics that have been traded all over the world. In the 1930s the futuristic movement reached Albissola, but only from the 1950s onwards did it become a meeting place for artists, intellectuals, writers and the most important personalities of the time.

From 1958 onwards Lam and Jorn participated actively in the bustling local pottery scene. Lam was later appointed an honorary citizen of Albissola. Between numerous trips Lam returned there again and again, such as in 1975, after he had travelled with his family to the North Cape, Norway, India and Greece. Having arrived in Albissola, he turned his hand again to the manufacture of ceramics, this time spurred on by the creative freedom that the medium allowed him and by the fruitful collaboration with the studio Le Ceramiche San Giorgio. The manufacture of ceramics, the fusion of earth and fire, is one of the oldest creative practices of mankind. Wifredo Lam: “Often I couldn’t sleep, waiting for the surprises of those unexpected tones.” Within three years he produced over 400 vases and other ceramic pieces, a selection of which was exhibited in the Museo della Ceramica in Albissola Mare in August 1975.

Today Wifredo Lam’s works appear worldwide in the most important museums, such as the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, or in the Tate in London. In 2011 the Grand Palais in Paris hosted the group exhibition “Césaire, Lam, Picasso, Nous nous sommes trouvés”. Lam’s works will also feature in the forthcoming Triennial in Paris under the artistic direction of Okwui Enwezor. The exhibition, conceived with intensive work around Wifredo Lam’s remaining pieces, unites approximately 30 of today’s extraordinarily rare original ceramics chiefly from the period between 1975 and 1977.

The opening will take place on 20 February in the Galerie Gmurzynska in St. Moritz with the artist’s son Eskil Lam in attendance. A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition with texts by Eskil Lam and art historian Anne Egger, including numerous historical documentation photographs. The documentary filmmaker Barbro Schultz Lundestam made a special film on the ceramics by Wifredo Lam.

GALERIE GMURZYNSKA
Via Serlas - Saint-Moritz - Switzerland
www.gmurzynska.com