Board_Advisors_etc 3..5

beauty in an imagerial culture. In this series, large-
format photographs of beaches and other tradi-
tional places of leisure are mounted on a wall, the
frames angled inward so as to appear as if invisible.
The images are surrounded by a pink glow, a literal
photographic ‘‘aura,’’ which reflects off the walls
from the edges of the red frames. Around these are
hung, for instance, plaques admonishing the viewer
to ‘‘discover your essence’’ or ‘‘change your life,’’
platitudes from a cultural machine that attempts to
brand and market happiness like any commodity.
The important aspect of Lu ̈thi’s work is that he
recognizes that art too may play a role in this
commodification—that it too may function as a
surrogate for truth. He displays all of his works
emblazoned with a photographic representation of
his own head, cast in profile like a Greek statue, as
both trademark and discursive authority. Likewise,
for his 2001 Venice Biennale exhibition, he reissued
his famous self-portraits from the 1970s, re-titling
them with their original name and the new title:
Trademarks(1970s/2001). In his long pursuit of
thinking about the role of the artist, Lu ̈thi recog-
nizes that these canonical portraits, which have
vastly influenced a generation of artists, have
become as entrenched as the very assumptions of
photographic truth that he started out contesting.

HannahFeld

Seealso: Conceptual Photography; Constructed
Reality; Photographic ‘‘Truth’’; Representation and
Gender

Biography

Born in Lucerne, Switzerland, 10 September 1947. Attended
Kunstgewerbeschule (E ́cole des Arts et Me ́tiers) in Zurich
from 1963–1964. Since 1994, Professor at the University
of Kassel, Kassel, Germany. Represented Switzerland in
the 2001 Venice Biennial. Lives in Munich and Kassel.

Individual Exhibitions

1966 Galerie Beat Ma ̈der; Bern, SwitzerlandGalerie Palette;
Zurich, Switzerland
1972 Galleria Diagramma; Milan, Italy
1974 Galerie Stadler; Paris, France
Galleria Schema; Florence, Italy
1975 Museum of Art and History; Geneva, Switzerland
Galerie Sta ̈hl; Zurich, Switzerland
1976 Kunsthalle Basel; Basel, Switzerland
Nishimura Gallery; Tokyo, Japan
1978 Museum Folkwang; Essen, Germany, Neue Galerie
am Landesmuseum Johanneum
1981 Bilder 1977–1980; Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern, Switzerland
1984 FRAC Pays de la Loire; Genas, France
1986 Kunstmuseum Winterthur; Winterthur, Switzerland
1990 Helmhaus Zurich; Zurich, Switzerland

1993 The Complete Life and Work, Seen Through the Pink

Glasses of Desire; Galerie Blancpain-Stepczynski, Gen-

eva, Switzerland

1994 Kunstraum im politischen Club Colonia; Cologne,

Germany

1996 Placebos & Surrogates; Galerie Blancpain-Stepc-

zynski, Geneva, Switzerland

2000 Run for Your Life (Placebos & Surrogates); Swiss

Institute, New York, New York

2001 Art for a Better Life: From Placebos & Surrogates;

XLIX Venice Biennial, Swiss Pavilion, Venice, Italy

Group Exhibitions

1970 Visual Thought Processes; Kunstmuseum Luzerne,

Lucerne, Switzerland

1974 Transformer; Kunstmuseum Luzerne, Lucerne, Switzer-

land, and traveled to The Kitchen, New York, New York;

Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylva-

nia; and Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Ohio

1975 Body Art; Galerie Stadler, Paris, France

1976 ArtasPhotography;FotoforumKassel,Kassel,Germany

1977 Identity, Identification; Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brus-

sels, Belgium

Documenta 6; Kassel, Germany

1978 Sydney Biennale; Sydney, Australia

Artitudes; Contemporary Art Gallery, Muse ́e de Nice,

Nice, France

1981 Westkunst; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France

1983 Art and Photography; Berlin National Gallery, Berlin,

German

1984 Contiguities; Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France

1985 Medium Photographies; Oldenburger Kunstverein,

Oldenburg, Germany

1987 Androgyne; Neuer Berlin Kunstverein, Berlin, German

1989 The Invention of an Art; Centre Georges Pompidou,

Paris, France

1992 Manifesto; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France

1995 Beyond Limits; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris,

France

1996 Masculine-Feminine; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris,

France

1999 The Truth of Photography; Hara Museum of Contem-

porary Art, Tokyo, Japan, and traveled to National

Center of Photography, Paris, France; Art Academy,

Berlin, Germany

Tomorrow Forever-Photography in Ruins; Kunsthalle

Krems, Krems, Austria

2000 Ich est etwas anderes—Art at the End of the Twentieth

Century; Sammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Du ̈sseldorf,

Germany

Selected Works

Sketches(with Willy Spiller and David Weiss), 1970

Lu ̈thi Also Weeps for You, 1970

Manon as a Self-Portrait by Urs Lu ̈thi, 1971

I’ll Be Your Mirror, 1972

The Numbergirl, 1973

The Complete Life and Work, Seen Through the Pink Glasses

of Desire, 1993

Placebos & Surrogates, 1996–

Run for Your Life, 2000

LU ̈THI, URS