In a presentation by Katalin Deér and Lukas Furrer

Erica Pedretti is an exceptional phenomenon in Swiss art and literature. Alongside her successes as a writer, she has created an independent oeuvre as a visual artist, which can be rediscovered today. Although quite revealing connections and intertwinings between image and text manifest themselves again and again, the pictorial work takes centre stage in the exhibition at the Art Museum Graubünden.
Erica Pedretti was born 1930 in Sternberg (Northern Moravia/Czechia). She moved to Switzerland in 1946. In Zürich she trained as a silversmith and created her first early small-size works, which anticipate her light and airy objects of later years. Erica Pedretti moved into the limelight as a visual artist for the first time in the 1970s with her “Flügelwesen” (winged creatures) and from these developed a large family of associative bird- or fish-like objects. These she juxtaposed with skeletal structures that seem to be reduced to an elemental core. Parallel to these an extremely fine oeuvre of drawings emerges, which emphasises the intimate character of this work.

The exhibition at the Art Museum Graubünden has vowed to present a representative overview of Erica Pedretti’s artistic work. The show combines works from all her creative periods since the 50s and allows us to rediscover this artist as one who seems highly contemporary. For the presentation at the Art Museum Graubünden the artist Katalin Deér and the architect Lukas Furrer could be won over. They have built their own structure into the exhibition space and have thus created a specific frame for the fragile works. Thereby Erica Pedretti’s oeuvre bonds in a special way with the place of its presentation. In the arrangement choreographed by Katalin Deér, the architectural space and the artistic work enter into a unique dialogue. Erica Pedretti’s art can be seen here in a different way: It shall appear “strange enough” and open itself up to a fresh view.