Swiss Artist Examines the Human and Spiritual in Solo Exhibition

Swiss artist Marck uses water to express perception, emotion, and resistance at Bluerider ART's Bund Shanghai gallery. His 2025 solo exhibition "Das Wasser" makes video and sculpture a living, breathing medium for exploring flow, tension, and transformation that feels deeply human and spiritual.

Marck, 61, a Swiss video sculpture pioneer, combines moving image with sculptural form to create "dynamic sculpture." At a meditative pace, his figures, mostly women, move, struggle, float, and resist within confined structures.

In "Gegenstrom" (Countercurrent), a submerged female body fights against the tide, her quiet resistance becoming a metaphor for survival.

"Living in a Deep Square" shows a woman navigating a grid, with her constrained movements reflecting invisible social rules. "Long Tube" shows the claustrophobic repetition of swimming back and forth in a narrow passage, which is both hypnotic and unsettling.

Through these works, the viewer's gaze becomes part of the piece: intimate yet voyeuristic, empathetic yet uneasy. "The purpose of video," he said, "is not to tell a story but to evoke emotions in the viewer."

In Chinese philosophy, water embodies the ideal state of being, yielding yet powerful. It nourishes all things without striving. In the West, too, water has long symbolized change and perception.

This exhibition, "Das Wasser," situates itself in this confluence. Marck's art turns water into more than a substance; it becomes "a mirror of the soul," reflecting the fragile beauty and emotional turbulence of human existence. Each piece invites viewers not merely to look, but to feel and sense the rhythm between immersion and emergence, control and surrender.

Though grounded in contemporary media, Marck rejects the notion of technology as spectacle. His handcrafted metal frames and cinematic sequences dissolve the stillness of sculpture and the linearity of film, allowing viewers to experience a new kind of presence, a perception in motion.

Within the gallery space, screens shimmer like portals, light ripples across surfaces, and the hum of moving images evokes the pulse of life itself. Visitors are invited to slow down, to listen to the whisper of water and the quiet monologue of their hearts.

Dates: through Jan 11, 2026

Address: 133 Sichuan Middle Rd.

Hours: 10am-7pm, Tue-Sun,

Admission: free