Born in 1948 in Sempach in the canton of Lucerne, Ian Anüll draws, paints, takes photographs, shoots films and creates diverse objects. From the beginning, he developed a free and sometimes iconoclastic conceptual approach which, by capturing the reality of everyday life, tends to create a typically Dadaist confusion between art and existence. His work adheres, above all, to preoccupations of a social, political and economic nature linked to globalisation and consumer society, which the artist has been confronted by during his many journeys.
Combining commitment and flegme, a realistic approach and symbolic densification, Ian Anüll’s art is above all based on observation. Without any moralising determination, but sometimes in an uncomfortable way, his works constantly invite spectators to look at and to think about what surrounds them. Aware of art’s capacity to have an impact on human beings, he enjoys disorientating, indeed overturning our value system and extricating us from our conditioning.
After having regularly revealed his work in national galleries and museums in the 1980s, Ian Anüll represented Switzerland in 1991 at the Bienal de São Paulo in Brazil. Since then, personal and collective exhibitions have been dedicated to him in numerous local and international institutions, such as the Kunstmuseum Bern, Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris and the Kunsthalle Giessen in Germany. He won the 2002 Meret Oppenheim Prize and was selected for Art Unlimited in Basel in 2008. The Helmhaus in Zurich devoted an important retrospective to him in 2010, which was followed by an exhibition at the Galerie Urs Meile in Beijing, where the artist chose to present a series of works which denounced, under the guise of art, the political and social situation in China. Ian Anüll now lives and works in Zurich.
Combining commitment and flegme, a realistic approach and symbolic densification, Ian Anüll’s art is above all based on observation. Without any moralising determination, but sometimes in an uncomfortable way, his works constantly invite spectators to look at and to think about what surrounds them. Aware of art’s capacity to have an impact on human beings, he enjoys disorientating, indeed overturning our value system and extricating us from our conditioning.
After having regularly revealed his work in national galleries and museums in the 1980s, Ian Anüll represented Switzerland in 1991 at the Bienal de São Paulo in Brazil. Since then, personal and collective exhibitions have been dedicated to him in numerous local and international institutions, such as the Kunstmuseum Bern, Kunstmuseum Solothurn, Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris and the Kunsthalle Giessen in Germany. He won the 2002 Meret Oppenheim Prize and was selected for Art Unlimited in Basel in 2008. The Helmhaus in Zurich devoted an important retrospective to him in 2010, which was followed by an exhibition at the Galerie Urs Meile in Beijing, where the artist chose to present a series of works which denounced, under the guise of art, the political and social situation in China. Ian Anüll now lives and works in Zurich.
