What at first sight seems to be monochrome painting with delicate color gradients and the odd tender gesture, inscribing itself in a long lineage of painting, turns out on closer inspection to be a found object, essentially an «objet trouvé». For what is involved are fabrics from sun blinds, bleached by decades shading living room balconies, and spanned taut by the artist to form a tondo. Brigham Baker’s artistic approach is defined by a deliberate and playful engagement with natural processes and everyday materials, which, as with Shades, he inserts into painterly traditions or transposes into installation layouts. Born in 1989 in Nipomo (California) and now based in Zurich, he explores his environment with a radical sense of curiosity and ensures exhibition visitors can participate in his unconventional and pseudo-scientific research that examines the categories of the classical art museum and links art with natural processes and phenomena. The jury, consisting of Ines Goldbach (Kunsthaus Baselland), Bob Gramsma (artist), Pierre-Andre Maus (Manor AG), Chantal Prod’Hom (mudac Lausanne) and Nadine Wietlisbach (Fotomuseum Winterthur) awarded Brigham Baker the 11th Manor Art Prize of the Canton of Zurich. The Manor Art Prize constitutes the most extensive private support for new art in Switzerland and comes with an exhibition and accompanying publication at the venues chosen. Previous Canton of Zurich prize winners who have exhibited at Kunst Museum Winterthur include: Britta Huttenlocher, Mario Sala, Nic Hess, Karim Noureldin, Andro Wekua, David Chieppo, Fabian Marti, Alexandra Navratil, El Frauenfelder and Christoph Eisenring.

Brigham Baker’s oeuvre has hitherto been on show in group exhibitions inside and outside the country. Kunst Museum Winterthur is hosting his various first institutional solo show in the context of the Manor Art Prize.

Curator: Lynn Kost

Kindly supported by

Ernst & Olga Gubler-Hablützel Stiftung