Olaf Breuning

Works

• Home 1/Home 2 --30 minute video starring Brian Kerstetter. Home 1 is presented as a double-projection, where the main character can no longer distinguish the difference between reality and fiction. He wanders around a hotel room telling stories about himself and other people to the camera. As he tells the stories, they are simultaneously seen on the opposite screen. In Home 2 Brian Kerstetter plays an ignorant tourist staggering around the world from Switzerland to Africa and Japan to Papua New Guinea, crashing his western mentality upon the exotic places he goes.
• Ugly Yelp, Apes, King, Hello Darkness --With these installations, Breuning creates theatrical atmospheres using sound, video and light. These installations have been shown in many museums and are owned by collections internationally.
• Easter Bunnies --A photograph created on Easter Island, transforming the Moais sculptures into Easter bunnies by setting up rabbit ears on C-stands in the extreme foreground.
• Sibylle -- Photograph of a female model lying on a table, whose body has been affected by cultural references to Matthew Barney, Cindy Sherman, Pablo Picasso, and others, resulting a creepily mutilated creature.
• Smoke Bombs --Exemplifies Breuning's photographic technique of leaving the mess of production within frame, allowing the viewer to see behind the scenes of the production.

  Exhibitions

Group exhibitions (selected)

• Das Fremde ist nur in der Fremde fremd, Museum Rietberg, Zurich, CH

• Ursula Palla und Olaf Breuning. Hin und Her, Binz 39, Zurich, CH
• Métamatic Reloaded, Tinguely Museum, Basel, CH
• La realtà non è un luogo comune. Fotografie e video della Collezione d'arte della Julius Baer, Museo Cantonale d'Arte, Lugano, CH

• Holzwege. Sentieri erranti. Arte svizzera dalla collezione della Mobiliare, Museo Cantonale d'Arte, Lugano, CH
• Parallelwelt Zirkus, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, AU
• Through the Looking Brain, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen, CH
• Incongru. Quand l'art fait rire, Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, CH

• Through the Looking Brain, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, DE

• Press Art. Die Sammlung Annette und Peter Nobel, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, St. Gallen, CH

• Darkside II. Fotografische Macht und fotografierte Gewalt, Krankheit und Tod, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur, CH
• 200 Artworks. 25 Years Artists, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, JP

• When fears become form, Centre d'art Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, CH
• Sammlung/Collection Migros Museum für Gegenwartkunst Zürich 1978-2008, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, CH
• Whitney Biennial 2008, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, US

• 12e Biennale de l'Image en mouvement, Centre pour l'image contemporaine, Geneva, CH
• What we bought, Camera Austria, Graz, AU
• All about Laughter: humor in contemporary art, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, JP
• Six Feet Under. Autopsie unseres Umgangs mit Toten. Autopsy of Our Relation to the Dead, Kunstmuseum Bern, CH

• Imagination becomes reality. Part IV. Borrowed images, Sammlung Goetz, München, DE
• Cindy Sherman, Gianni Motti, Olaf Breuning, Galerie Nicola von Senger, Zurich, CH
• Some tribes, Christophe Guye Galerie, Zurich, CH

• Urban Diaries. Young Swiss Art, Alcalá 31, Madrid, ESP
• M_ARS. Kunst und Krieg, :de:Neue Galerie Graz am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, AU

• Lorbeer-Extrakt. Manor-Kunstpreis Schaffhausen 1987-2001, Museum zu Allerheiligen, Schaffhausen, CH

• M family. Die Bilder zum Migros Geschäftsbericht 2000, Migros Museum für Gegenwartkunst, Zurich, CH
• Up in the sky. Himmel in der Kunst der 90er Jahre, Kunsthaus Grenchen, Grenchen, CH
• Collaborations with Parkett: 1984 to Now, Museum of Modern Art, New York, US

• Eidgenössische Preise für freie Kunst 2000, Kunsthalle Fri Art, Freiburg, CH
• Let's be friends, Migros Museum für Gegenwartkunst, Zurich, CH
• EX25 Hochschule und Museum Für Gestaltung und Kunst Zürich die Letzten 25 Jahre Halle, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Zurich, CH
• Reality Bytes. Der medial vermittelte Blick, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nürnberg, DE

• Eidgenössische Preise für freie Kunst 1999, Kunsthalle Zürich, Zurich, CH

• Freie Sicht aufs Mittelmeer. Junge Schweizer Kunst, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich, CH

  Books

• Ugly, 2000, monograph, Hatje Cantz,
• Home, 2004, monograph, JPR/Ringier, Magasin, Les Musees de Strasbourg,
• Queen Mary, 2006, drawing catalogue, JPR/Ringier,
• Queen Mary II, 2010, monograph, JPR/Ringier, Zurich