SIMONE KAPPELER

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SIMONE KAPPELER

SIMONE KAPPELER

Simone Kappeler (*1952, CH) started taking pictures at the age of eleven. 1972–1976, read German and art history at the University of Zürich. 1975–1979, studied photography at the School of Design in Zürich (today’s Zürich University of the Arts). During a three-month trip to the United States in 1981, took her first pictures using cheap cameras, especially the Diana camera. Since 1982, ongoing projects in southern France and the Grisons. 1982/83, studio in New York, conceptual photography and Super 8 films. 1983/84, theater photographer, Schauspielhaus Zürich. Married to the writer Gianni Kuhn; three sons: Konradin, Joël and Gabriel. 2009, six-week photographic study of Japan, 2015 studio in New York. The artist lives in Frauenfeld and works from home and while travelling. She makes use of various techniques and devices.

"If there were only one word to describe Simone Kappeler’s oeuvre, it would be “stillness”. This stillness is a form of complete silence that marks more than a brief moment, more than arrested time. What is so utterly captivating in Kappeler’s photographs is their sense of almost filmic duration.

Many who have written about Simone Kappeler speak of the timelessness that informs her photographs. It is as if the moment, the tiny slice of time, captured in these pictures has dropped out of the temporal continuum. Kappeler’s subject matter covers the entire spectrum of classical photography: landscape, interiors, still lifes, everyday scenes, portraits. The pictures are taken in the context of her surroundings at home and in the course of numerous travels. Although her work features a striking variety of styles, it shows a cogent overall coherence.

Many of the photographs are marked by a sense of flow. The subject matter shimmers; there are no distinct contours. Sometimes, it is as if we were witnessing a picture in the making, watching the magical process that has vanished since the rise of digital photography. It is as if we were in the dark room watching forms slowly taking shape on the paper; we see a landscape emerging, we can gradually identify things or people. The feeling that something is rising up out of the depths of the picture plane – actually a contradiction in terms – is often conveyed in Simone Kappeler’s photographs. It is not only that they are blurred; the photographs themselves seem unfinished, non-finito, as in the fine arts. They are in an incomplete state, constantly in a state of becoming".

Corinne Schatz, 2014

Solo exhibitions (Selection)

2022
• Group Show & book publication: Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Tiefenschärfe, Katalog: Verlag Scheidegger und Spiess

2021
• Falling out of Time, Gallery Bildhalle, Zurich
• Pflanzen im Licht, Kabinettausstellung Naturmuseum Thurgau

2018
• Qui est Simone K? Exposition de Photographie Galerie Lumière des Roses, Paris
• Fleur, Galerie widmertheodoridis, Eschlikon

2017
• Fleur, Musée La Filature, Mulhouse
• Paris Photo: Cyanotypies, Galerie Lumière des Roses, Paris

2015
• Analoge Verfremdungen, Galerie widmertheodoridis, Eschlikon
• Röntgen- und Infrarotphotographien, La Belle Juliette, Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris

2014
• Through America, Photographs from the 1980s, De Buck Gallery, New York
• Auftauchen im Bild, Kunstverein Konstanz
• Paris Photo: Infrarot- und Röntgenfotografien, mit Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris

2013
• Rotverschiebung, neuer shed, Frauenfeld
• Darkened Days, The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin
• America 1981, Galerie Esther Woerdehoff, Paris

2011
• Seile. Fluss. Nacht. Fotografien 1964–2011, Museum zu Allerheiligen Schaffhausen

2010
• dazwischen – in between. Japan 09, semina rerum – Irène Preiswerk, Zürich (with Yamamoto Masao)

Collections (Selection) 

• Art collection Banca del Gottardo, Lugano
• Art collection Bank Vontobel, Zürich
• Art collection Bayer, Leverkusen (Dauerleihgabe im Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne)
• Art collection Bundesamt für Kultur, Bern
• Art collection Collection Neuflize Vie, Paris
• Art collection Fotostiftung Schweiz
• Art collection Kunstmuseum Thurgau
• Art collection der Stadt Zürich
• Art collection Kunstverein Schaffhausen, Museum zu Allerheiligen Schaffhausen
• Art collection Credit Suisse
• Art collection Seminar Kreuzlingen
• Art collection der Stadt Frauenfeld
• Art collection Sturzenegger Stiftung
• Art collection Thurgauer Kantonalbank
• Art collection UBS Art Collection
• Art collection VW, Wolfsburg

Awards and Grants (Selection)

2021 
• Kulturpreis des Kantons Thurgau

2015
• Atelierstipendium New York des Kantons Thurgau

2014
• Konstanzer Kunstpreis

1996 / 2008
• Förderbeitrag des Kantons Thurgau

1987
• Preis der Jubiläumsstiftung der Schweizerischen Bank gesellschaft

Publications and books (Selection)

2022
• Der Birnbaum, Saatgut Verlag Frauenfeld

2020
• America 1981, Codax Publisher und Verlag Scheidegger & Spiess, Zürich

2011
• Seile. Fluss. Nacht. Fotografien 1964–2011, Exhibition catalogue, Museum zu Allerheiligen Schaffhausen

2010
• dazwischen – in between. Japan 09, Exhibition cata logue, semina rerum – Irène Preiswerk, Zürich

2003
• Momente unscheinbarer Sensation, Exhibition catalogue, Villa am Aabach

2001
• Marvel: Das Geheimnis der unsichtbaren Strahlen, Exhibition catalogue, semina rerum – Irène Preiswerk, Zürich

1998
• Die Schatten der Dinge, Exhibition catalogue, semina rerum – Irène Preiswerk, Zürich
• Simone Kappeler: an der Grenze des Sichtbaren, Exhibition catalogue, Kunstmuseum Thurgau, Kartause Ittingen

1995
• Diana. Photographien von Simone Kappeler, Frauenfeld

1990
• Omphalos: Schildbuckel, Nabel, Mittelpunkt, Knopf, Schlussstein. Photographien von Simone Kappeler, Frauenfeld