Irène Hug – Reading Pictures

The catalog “Reading Pictures” is the first comprehensive examination of the work of Berlin-based Swiss artist Irène Hug. In addition to her work of the last sixteen years, it includes essays by philosopher Gernot Grube, curator and art critic Raimar Stange, and art historian Viola Vahrson.
Far from sober artworks of American minimalists or conceptual artists involving written language, Irène Hug confronts us with her messages in glaring neon signs, objects, installations, and photographs. Hug utilises and manipulates the typographic components of signposts, logos, and advertising slogans that cover urban spaces worldwide. Using techniques of appropriation, montage, citation, and retouching she reacts to found materials, situations, or stereotypical images, commenting on and changing their meaning using pointed but complex artistic interventions.
With subtle wit, Irène Hug questions in “Reading Pictures” our belief in the truth of the supposedly objective world (or its representation) and our entanglement in omnipresent consumerism and challenges us to get, behind the surfaces, as it were, to the bottom of the true meaning of things and words.