Nives Widauer: Villa Nix, Hardcover

Nives Widauer: Villa Nix documents Vienna-based Swiss artist Nives Widauer's ambitious two-part exhibition at the Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris and Kunstmuseum Olten in 2020. The Paris show, Antichambre, was a prelude to and incorporated within the larger exhibition Villa Nix at Kunstmuseum Olten, which invited viewers to experience seven different rooms in the imaginary home Widauer created for her art. In visiting the intimate and dense spaces in which Widauer has arranged careful constellations of her works--an antechamber, a garden, an archive, a bedchamber, an unknown room, a loggia, and a gym--viewers simultaneously explore both the physical spaces as well as Widauer's imaginary mental space. Intensely evocative, the rooms work as mnemonic spaces, rich in historic and cultural connotations.

A beautifully illustrated retrospective of three decades of work by this important contemporary artist, Nives Widauer: Villa Nix features each room as a chapter, with essays, an email exchange, and a conversation with the artist that reflect the spaces and the artworks they house.

Dorothee Messmer is an art historian and director of Kunstmuseum Olten. Katja Herlach is an art historian, curator, and deputy director at Kunstmuseum Olten. Claire Hoffmann is a curator at the Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris.