Swiss artist Martin Disler (1949 1996) was a self-taught painter, draughtsman, and sculptor, as well as a poet. Over the course of his career, his work evolves from clearly recognisable motifs towards the utter disintegration of figures. Especially his later paintings owe their power, as well as their size, to his particular way of working: In a highly physical process, the artist would alternate between applying and removing paint, moulding matter with brushes and knives as well as with his hands and nails until his body merged with the work. The materialisation of Disler’s physical thinking, a ‘theatre of survival’, places him in a fascinating dialogue with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and the great expressionist’s work. This new monograph, published in conjunction with an exhibition at Kirchner Museum Davos, focuses on the last decade of Disler’s career and relates his output from the period to Kirchner’s art, thus revealing similarities between the two artists. The essays explore the importance of the human body and its role in the artist’s creative process as well as aspects such as movement and dance, gesture, expression, abstraction and figuration. AUTHORS: Carla Burani is an art historian and has been appointed as director of Kirchner Museum Davos in 2019. Beat Wismer is a scholar of art history and has been director of Museum Kunstpalast in Dusseldorf (Germany) 2007 17 and Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau (Switzerland) 1985 2007. SELLING POINTS: . Martin Disler (1949 1996) is one of Switzerland’s most significant 20th-century artists whose work gained much international attention and was shown in solo exhibitions during his lifetime at important venues such as London’s Whitechapel Art Gallery, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Vienna’s Albertina . This new monograph focuses on Disler’s late work, putting it in context with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s art . Accompanies the Theatre of Survival: Martin Disler. The Final Years exhibition at Kirchner Museum Davos (December 2020 until April 2021) 70 colour, 10 b/w illustrations
