Ticino in the Nineties

You might almost consider Luca Gansser to be a realist, but in the end, you will rather count him among the surrealists. It is true, Gansser does not release hell and the distorted faces of the unconscious, nor does he take us on a haunted mansion ride. His surrealism treads softly, a slight dislocation of “true conditions,” and we are already sliding into a (day)dream, and suddenly reality has a double bottom or no bottom at all. Time and again, the artist lets us glance into caves or stage-like spaces, into sculleries or property rooms. Among draped fabrics and soft-boned structures, masks of black Africa show; a Russian general uniform hovers on a hanger – but it is empty (where did the general disappear to?). Fabrics concealing something undefinable; flowing robes sitting on a chair; but the person who used to wear them has absconded. Underwear, bras, dangling white in front of household and gardening tools. What could be more everyday-like? And yet: something uncanny, uncontrollable has oozed in.

Fritz Billeter, Zurich, 1991