At the center of the exhibition "Hier die Wolken” ("Here the clouds!") sits Andreas Zust's (1947-2000), Fluoreszierende Nebelmeere (Fluorescent Seas of Fog ) from the series Himmel (Sky) which the artist photographed in the late 1970s and especially in 1999/2000, shortly before his death. The pictures show optical and meteorological phenomena of the atmosphere, twilight phenomena, iridescent clouds or nocturnal seas of fog, which particularly Favor the Swiss climate and Swiss topography. These are pictures that the Swiss author Michel Mettler describe as follows: 'The longer I look at them, the deeper I fall into their suction, the more I suspect that the paper has been directly dusted or breathed by the elements, solarized by the moment committed to sidereal orders, which of course understands that the emulsion on which such celestial-immanent notations emerge, ultimately only in the head of the photographer can lie: With the camera as a converter, he looks into his inside."
The Ilfochrome prints, that Michel MeLLler speaks of, are in the exhibition juxtaposed with prints made during there search of Mara Zust in Kolkata (in collaboration with Krispin Hee). Since there are still machines in operation in the city that have long since been shut down in Switzerland, the print infrastructure in this city is ideal to reflect the artistic question of which possibilities of today, and the end of the Gutenberg area and after Walter Benjamin, is inherent in the media of print. Or to continue he thought of MichelMeller: How duslens and breathes Kolkata the Himmel prints of Andreas Zust, what shape does a look trough those converted pictures into the inside of this city takes?
The exhibition is complemented by a selection of books From the Bibliothek Andreas Zust (library of Andreas Zust) a ramble that follows the theme Himmel, in many ways, be it in scientific, religious, literary, artistic or trivial form. These selections of books are expanded to finds on the same topic that Mara Zust has made while roaming College Street. thereby arises not only a small Himmel Library but also one of the production techniques and book design.
Andreas Zust was born in 1947 in Bern, Switzerland. Studies of natural sciences at the ETH Zurich and sociology at the University of Zurich. Research-Assistant for Climatology and Glaciology in Canada, Greenland and the Swiss Alps (1973-80). Since 1979 various individual and group exhibitions in Germany and abroad. From 1991- 94 co-production of the Peter Mettler film Picture of Light. From the middle of the 1990s, cooperation with the writer Peter Weber for the slideshow Himmel. Deceased on August 7th 2000.
Mara Zust was born in 1976 in Zurich, Switzerland. Studies of history, art history and visual communications at the University of Zurich and Zurich University of the Arts ZHdk. She works as an artist, mediator and researcher and is the person in charge of the estate of Andreas Zust which runs the Bibliothek Andreas Zust, Oberegg (Appenzell lnnerrhoden in Swit1erland ). Since 2014 she is1working on a book about the media print in Kolkata.
The Bibliothek Andreas Zust includes approximately 10,4000 titles on topics ranging from, e.g., the weather, geology, astronomy, physics, literature, photography, art, kitsch, and popular culture. Since 2010, the Bibliothek is been located at the panorama hostel Alpenhof and is publicly accessible. Furthermore, it functions as a traveling library which gets show regularly in other institutions.