Hannah Villiger

Hannah Villiger (1951, Cham – 1997, Auw, Switzerland) studied sculpture with Anton Egloff at the School of Applied Arts in Lucerne between 1972 and 1974. In 1974, she was awarded the Swiss Federal Art Scholarship as well as a grant for the Istituto Svizzero in Rome, and soon developed a singular artistic approach. From 1992 to 1996, she taught at the Schule für Gestaltung in Basel.

Her work, now recognized internationally, came to prominence in 1975 when she represented Switzerland at the 9th Biennale de Paris alongside John Armleder and Martin Disler. In 1981, she took part in the group exhibition Künstler aus Basel at Kunsthalle Basel, before presenting the solo exhibition Neid (Envy) there in 1985, curated by Jean-Christophe Ammann. Major institutional exhibitions followed at the Centre culturel suisse, Paris (1986); the Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (1988); the Kunstverein Frankfurt (1991); and the 22nd Bienal de São Paulo (1994), where she exhibited in the Swiss Pavilion with Pipilotti Rist.

Since her death in 1997, numerous retrospectives have been dedicated to her work, including at Kunsthalle Basel and Kunsthalle Bonn (2001), nGbK – Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Berlin (2002), MAMCO – Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Geneva (2007), Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2008), and Centre culturel suisse, Paris (2012). More recently, the exhibition Hannah Villiger: Amaze Me was presented at Muzeum Susch, Switzerland (2023), followed in 2024 by a major retrospective at the Centre Pompidou, Paris.