In one of the most important shows of the year, MAAT presents Disco, an exhibition with more than 500 paintings by Vivian Suter – the Swiss-Argentine artist exploring the possibilities of painting, particularly its relationship with nature. 

Over the last four decades, Swiss-Argentine painter Vivian Suter (b. 1949) has been building a monumental body of work in Panajachel, in Guatemala. Disco, named after the artist’s dog, presents the culmination of this work, showcasing over 500 paintings, including 163 pieces being exhibited for the first time. Vivian Suter’s geographic location plays a pivotal role in her artistic practice, profoundly influencing both her creative process and the final outcome of her paintings.

As Vivian Suter says: “Nothing I have ever worked on as an artist would have any meaning without this place, without these trees, without the leaves, without my dogs, who follow me wherever I go.” In fact, in Panajachel, her work took a new direction.

Vivian Suter’s abstract paintings are the result of a daily, physical and emotional relationship with the materials and contingencies of nature in the place where she lives and works. Rain, earth, humidity and footprints of animals often inhabit her canvases, expressing the close interaction between the artist and the ecosystem in which the work is generated.

“She discovered a fertile setting in which to pursue her disciplined, solitary, and obsessive practice, creating a unique visual language, a particular expressive idiom, based on the living qualities of this place. Here, her painting started incorporating and responding to her immediate work environment, interacting with the biotope, seasonal cycles, weather, light, flora, fauna, and all the other vital forces that permeate this natural space.” writes Sérgio Mah, the curator of the exhibition in his essay Weather Station for the catalogue.

All the paintings gathered in this show are untitled and undated, although Vivian Suter believes they were made during the last ten years. She uses various techniques and materials, including acrylic, oil, and pigments mixed with fish glue. However, when they are painted outside, where they often remain for days, weeks, or months, the canvases are exposed to the sun, wind, rain, and humidity, incorporating dirt, leaves, debris, and insect remains, and even canine paw prints.

“It is a collaborative work, free from hierarchy and preconceptions, completely open to nature's imprints and random, unpredictable effects, with all its unfolding rhythms, forms, and forces, which both originate and reside in it.”adds Sérgio Mah.

Disco comes after several moments of great international critical acclaim following her participation in Documenta 14, 2017 and her exhibitions at the Reina Sofia National Museum in Madrid and the Vienna Secession. Disco will travel to the Palais de Tokyo in the summer of 2025, as part of a collaborative effort between the two institutions.

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Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia

ArtWorks

Biography

Vivian Suter was born in Buenos Aires to exiled European parents – her father owned a textile printing plant in Buenos Aires, while her mother, Elisabeth Wild, was an artist. When she was 12, during the Peron regime, her family relocated to Basel, Switzerland, where she studied painting. In 1982, shortly after her first major group exhibition at Kunsthalle Basel, she visited Latin America, and the following year, she settled in Panajachel, Guatemala, near the Lake Atitlán. The local atmosphere, climate, vegetation, and animals became central themes in her work. Vivian Suter's works, painted on stretched manta and exhibited unstretched, remain untitled and undated. Traces of rain, mud, leaves and also the remnants left by her dogs – Bonzo, Tintin, Nina and Disco – footprints contribute to the organic and lively quality of the paintings. When exhibited, her paintings are often overlapping, suspended and moving with the wind, air currents or the movements of visitors.
Her most notable exhibitions include: Kunstmuseum Olten, 2004; Kunsthalle Basel, 2014; São Paulo Biennial, 2014; documenta 14, Kassel and Athens, 2017; Power Plant, Toronto, 2018; the Art Institute of Chicago, 2019; Camden Art Centre, London, 2020; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, 2021; Secession, Vienna, 2023. Vivian Suter’s works are included in renowned collections like the Tate in London, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and the Kunstmuseum in Basel and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, among others.