Jean-Frédéric Schnyder

In Jean-Frédéric Schnyder's eighth solo show with the gallery—and his second at its New York location—Galerie Eva Presenhuber offers a survey of more than 40 paintings made by the artist in the three decades leading up to 2000.

As Schnyder had previously aligned himself with the broader conceptual art movement, his sudden turn to painting in 1970 marked a radical departure for the Swiss artist. Though his plein air-style canvases depicting the Swiss landscape could suggest otherwise, Schnyder maintains a holistic philosophy, producing a steady stream of works that resist the conventions of genre. To wit: this exhibition also revives Schnyder's 2014 installation piece Hüter der Schwelle (Guardians of the threshold), which features 22 functional electric lamps fashioned out of banana cartons.

From Eva Presenhuber:

The installation and the 42 paintings on display are so diverse that their assembly does not seem to make sense at first sight. However, the logic exists precisely in the fact that single works and series are the results of a rigidly methodical process, while the whole goes far beyond these systems. In the series themselves, insanity has found its system while Schnyder's work defies any kind of systemization.