“Franz Gertsch. Presence” at Hauser & Wirth New York

“Franz Gertsch. Presence”: A Monumental Tribute to Hyperrealism

Opening this November at Hauser & Wirth’s Wooster Street location in New York, “Franz Gertsch. Presence” delivers an arresting encounter with the late Swiss master’s groundbreaking vision. Curated by Dr. Tobia Bezzola, Director of the Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana (MASI), the exhibition brings together eight towering works that span Franz Gertsch’s singular, six-decade career—each piece an intricate meditation on the fragile poetry of lived moments.

While Gertsch is often cited as a photorealist, this show makes clear that his approach transcends mimicry. “Franz Gertsch. Presence” captures not merely appearance, but essence—transmuting photographs into tactile meditations through a methodical, patient process that redefines both painting and woodcut as immersive, almost devotional practices. At a time when digital tools encourage speed and replication, Gertsch’s analog discipline feels not only refreshing but radical.

This is the first comprehensive presentation of the artist’s work in New York, and it offers American audiences a rare chance to experience Gertsch’s massive canvases and prints in their intended, overwhelming scale—portraits and landscapes that stand as temporal monuments.

“Franz Gertsch. Presence”: Portraiture, Performance, and Perception

A major highlight of “Franz Gertsch. Presence” is the riveting diptych of ‘Patti Smith III’ and ‘Patti Smith IV’ (both 1979), culled from photographs Gertsch took at a live concert in Cologne. In Gertsch’s hands, the raw immediacy of a rock performance is distilled into stillness, where every hair, every nuance of Smith’s expression becomes a study in presence itself. These portraits are not mere reproductions—they’re transformations, suspending energy in pigment and embedding the transient into permanence.

Further into the exhibit, the towering triptych ‘Guadeloupe’ (2011–2013) shifts the focus from portraiture to nature. Drawn from photographic studies of the Caribbean jungle, the canvas dissolves realism into dreamlike immersion. The work’s verdant density flirts with abstraction while holding onto the natural world’s visceral texture. In this, Gertsch doesn’t merely depict landscape—he channels its pulse.

Elsewhere, in pieces like ‘Natascha IV’ (1987–88), ‘Rüschegg’ (1988–89), and ‘Schwarzwasser II’ (1993–94), Gertsch’s genius with woodcuts is on full display. His mastery of the unforgiving medium—using hand-forged tools and natural pigments on Japanese paper—elevates a centuries-old technique into a contemporary revelation. His claim that “nothing is less suited to capturing light than a woodcut” becomes a personal challenge overcome with breathtaking results.

“Franz Gertsch. Presence”: A Legacy Etched in Light and Time

Born in 1930, Franz Gertsch reshaped the possibilities of figurative painting and printmaking with work that investigated not just a visual surface, but the emotional and philosophical undertones of human presence. Following his breakout at documenta 5 in 1972, Gertsch pursued a path that was as rigorous as it was poetic. His paintings, based meticulously on photographs, invite viewers into a prolonged gaze, demanding patience and offering transcendence.

His later innovation in woodcut printmaking—marked by painterly detail and subtle luminosity—was not merely a technical achievement, but a philosophical one. Gertsch’s work invites viewers to slow down, to witness the act of seeing itself. That ethic permeates “Franz Gertsch. Presence”, where every piece holds space for reflection, reverence, and quiet astonishment.

This exhibition, running from November through the end of the year, is a reintroduction of a visionary voice whose relevance feels more urgent than ever in our overstimulated, image-saturated age.