Biography
Sebastian Utzni (b. 1981) is a conceptual artist based in Zurich and Lucerne, Switzerland. The materials he uses are varied and are chosen to serve best the delivery of each project.
His working technique is that of a flâneur, relying on happenstance to throw up new subjects of research and directions of thought. This is a time-based, peripatetic process of collection and absorption. An idea may ripen over many years before it comes into fruition and takes material form. Utzni is interested in the quotidian simultaneity of academic, cultural, economic, historic, political, scientific and societal contexts, filtering and undertaking a detailed analysis of often-ambivalent cultural symbols. In this process he physically tests materials, juxtaposing and making visible connections and existing structures that may gone unnoticed. This leads to unexpected, often contradictory combinations of materials and subjects placed within a contemporary context.
The recipient plays an important part in Utzni's work. Not only is he interested in testing the recipient's reaction, but the recipient is needed to activate the work and complete it. After the recipient has internalised the concept of the work it may well disappear or dissolve and continue to be active in the recipient's mind.
Recent exhibitions include:
Kunstmuseum Luzern 2025, NRW-Forum Düsseldorf 2024, Casa Bianca Municipal Art Gallery Thessaloniki 2024, Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein Vaduz 2023, Museum für Druckkunst Leipzig 2021, Art Cologne 2019, Art Brussels 2019, Kunstmuseum Reutlingen 2019, NADA New York 2018, Palais de Beaux Arts (BOZAR) Brussels 2018, Art Rotterdam 2017, Herrmann Germann Contemporary Zurich 2017, o.T. Raum für aktuelle Kunst Luzern 2017, Haus Konstruktiv Zurich 2016, Helmhaus Zurich 2016, Kunstmuseum Olten 2016 etc.
represented by Lullin+Ferrari Gallery, Zurich
