Four conversations, four portraits, and three landscapes are collected in the publication “für Perla / for Perla” by Gilgi Guggenheim, which is being published to accompany the exhibition in St. Katharinen in St. Gallen. This small, carefully designed publication provides the first insight into the work of the artist.
Guggenheim is a painter. Avalanches and waves, great forces of nature in other words, were her last paintings. In her most recent work “for Perla” she delves into her family history. Born in Israel in 1973, the artist lays a very personal line in history with these four portraits: Great-grandmother Perla and her family were killed by the Nazis. The mother is committed to peace projects in Israel. Guggenheim herself grew up there and has an insight into life in the Middle East. The portraits do not, however, ostensibly reflect this conflict, but rather capture a subjective moment that is on the brink of collapse: whether the inner emotional world finds breath in laughter, in the joy of life, or in crying, turned completely inward, seems undecided. The portraits stand for four biographies of different generations and look from a burdened past into the future.
The main part of the publication are four conversations. Four conversational partners, each with a different relationship to the artist and her work, questioned Guggenheim about her history and her artistic way of dealing with it. The conversations provide a vivid insight into Gilgi Guggenheim’s work and thinking, and offer a four-time different approach to a multi-layered oeuvre.