Exhibition Gaspare O.Melcher / Matias Spescha in Trun

The focus of Gaspare O. Melcher's exhibition – based on his early encounter with Matias Spescha's "alphabet poétique" – is the profound reflection of both artists on the ordering principles of image and spatial composition.

In his serial works, Gaspare Otto Melcher examines pictorial language, the roots of which lie in prehistory and which can also be recognized in ancient pictorial writings as "ideographic frameworks". In this context, he was particularly fascinated by his encounter with Matias Spescha's "alphabet poétique", whose pictorial language also represents for him a search for the laws of pictorial and spatial relationships.

In his own art, Melcher used the technique of condensing ideographic signs to create highly complex figures, which he declined in sometimes typesetting-like arrangements and depicted on paper or canvas. In his series of works, these sign systems develop into abstract texts that – contrary to the usual direction of writing – cannot be read linearly, but depict complex ideas and trains of thought at the same time.

In contrast to Melcher's condensation of pictorial means, Matias Spescha searches for a reduction to the essential. For example, in the graphic surface design through clear pictorial forms and lines, which is the basis of his "alphabet poétique" of 1979.

In the exhibition, Melcher's newly created works enter into a dialogue with Spescha's works from the 1980s and 1990s. In connection with the exhibition, a conversation with the artist and Beat Stutzer will take place on May 3, 2025.