Zimoun

This book documents for the first time the space-specific installations that Zimoun has realized since 2009.
 
Swiss artist Zimoun enjoys significant international renown for an oeuvre that he has been creating over a period of some twenty years. Zimoun uses mechanical principles of rotation and oscillation to set things in motion and generate sounds. He uses mundane, unspectacular materials and conventional industrial products. For his works, he develops small, minimalist apparatuses that generate tonal and visual complexity when activated, despite their fundamental simplicity. These mechanical contraptions are often used hundreds of times in the installations, creating visual and acoustic spaces with fascinating power and poetry.
 
This book presents sixty-five of these site-specific installations that Zimoun realized between 2009 and 2021 in various art galleries and museums around the world. The full-page images are supplemented with brief texts by international authors, who outline a variety of perspectives on Zimoun’s work. Two concise essays consider and position his oeuvre in the wider international and art historical context. QR codes provided with all the images extend the book by enabling the direct playback of video documentations available online, thus offering the reader the additional dimension of sound and movement—the essential elements of Zimoun’s art.

Zimoun lives and works in Bern, Switzerland, where he designs and realizes his works with a team of collaborators. His works have been displayed in group and solo exhibitions in many museums around the world, such as the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo MAC in Santiago de Chile, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, Le Centquatre in Paris, Beijing’s National Art Museum, Seoul Museum of Art, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Museum of Image and Sound in São Paulo, Kunstmuseum Bern, MASI at LAC Lugano, the Museum Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich, and many others.