Guadalupe Ruiz
Qué bueno verte, qué bueno volverte a ver.

When Sherrie Levine photographed images from Walker Evans’s photo book First and Last in 1979, and presented these photographs in exhibitions as her own works, the question of the difference between the original and the technical reproduction in contemporary art was put up for debate again. In addition to Levine, pioneers of appropriation art include Louise Lawler, Richard Prince, Barbara Kruger, and Cindy Sherman, who began working artistically with photography in new ways in the 1970s. If Levine insists that a photographed image of a photograph by Walker Evans, which she exhibits under her own name, does not infringe his copyright and is therefore in no way a work by him, then this means that, to quote the philosopher Richard Wollheim, she considers “the history of the production of a work of art is relevant to its identity.” Appropriation art was political art because it gave equal weight to the genesis and appearance of a work of art. The artists played with the behavior of audiences as they receive artworks, which is geared toward seeing based on recognition, emphasizing the production-aesthetic aspects of their work.

In a late interview with Hal Foster published in 2018, Richard Serra recalled the art historian George Kubler and his conception of time and history as outlined in The Shape of Time (1962). Drawing on Kubler’s theories, the artist described and identified works in his own oeuvre that he referred to using Kubler’s term “prime objects,” explaining how they differed from the many replicas that form the majority of art history and the bulk of contemporary art production. This topic was also addressed by the Fondazione Prada in 2015 in two exhibitions curated by Salvatore Settis, Serial Classic in Milan and Portable Classic in Venice. Primary objects fascinated Serra because they fundamentally renew art in surprising ways without necessarily establishing a new form of tradition. Guadalupe Ruiz, on the other hand, consciously works with photographs, replicas, or copies because she is interested in cultural techniques and the associated intercultural processes. She photographs, copies, and reproduces with the aim of appropriating and understanding her own lifeworld through its representation. Raised in Colombia, she came to Switzerland alone as a teenager and studied graphic design and photography in Lausanne. The permanent relocation of her life to Switzerland changed her self-perception in the present and, at the same time, her perspective on the world of her childhood and her family. Her artistic work deals with exchange, imitation, translation, appropriation, and reproduction.

At der TANK, Guadalupe Ruiz is exhibiting furniture that she has reproduced since her studies. She has previously exhibited and documented some of these copied objects in her private sphere. She then published photographs of these staged objects in publications she produced herself. “First, I photograph with my hands,” she writes about the craftsmanship involved in making the copies, “each piece is handmade and patiently reconstructed.” Along with the replicas of furniture that connect to her own history and that of her family, she shows objects in Qué bueno verte, qué bueno volverte a ver. that are connected to the life of the late Liliane Patzer, a well-known figure in Nidau who worked as an art and antiques dealer in Biel/Bienne in the postwar years. This exhibition is therefore about collecting, arranging, and (de)contextualizing objects with which Ruiz has an emotional connection. Reproductions on a scale that differs from the original are reminiscent of the work of a photographer. Ruiz refers to the replicas as images and formulates the following formula for her method: “Look twice. Look more closely.” It may be an “overall decor,” she writes about the idea for this exhibition, “a kind of small retrospective.” Anyone who thinks of the artist Marcel Broodthaers here may not be wrong.

Roman Kurzmeyer

Guadalupe Ruiz

The IKEA toy desk, 2025
Desk: yellow pine, plywood, 75 x 160 x 60 cm; chair: Swiss pine, 85 x 40 x 44.5 cm

Cabinet, 2025
Yellow pine, plywood, 94 x 116 x 60 cm

Shaker peg rails, 2019
Walnut, tin, each: 228 x 7.5 x 2 cm

Five small chairs, 2019
Walnut, oak, Swiss pine, wild service tree, ash, each 31 x 21 x 25 cm

Book rack for crime thrillers, 2019
White fir, 191 x 85 x 25 cm

Mirror-fronted wooden chest with three drawers, 2025
Mirror: 119 x 120 x 0.6 cm; shelf: yellow pine, plywood, 179.5 x 28 x 4 cm

A shelf found in my attic, 2025
Yellow pine, cotton fabric, embroidered pearl cotton threads, aluminum, 155 x 27 x 27 cm

Sampler with birds, animals, flowers, and other symbols, 2025
Embroidery on cotton with silk and metal threads, 30 x 42 cm

Bean table, 2019
MDF, cherry wood, cherry wood veneer, 138 x 78 x 40 cm

A collection of white bed sheets
Various sizes

A painting by George Cole, ca. 1830
Oil on canvas, 51 x 62 cm
Stadt Biel / Ville de Bienne (Bequest of Liliane Patzer)

A collection of photographs of paintings, undated
Various formats
Bequest of Liliane Patzer

A collection of art auction catalogues, late 20th century
Various formats
Bequest of Liliane Patzer

A collection of cartels used to describe paintings, displayed in the shop windows by Liliane and Paul Patzer, undated
Various sizes
Bequest of Liliane and Paul Patzer

A collection of cubes of sugar, undated
Various sizes
Bequest of Liliane Patzer

A collection of wrapping ribbons, undated
Various sizes
Bequest of Liliane Patzer

Spirit level, undated
Wood, plastic, 30 x 5 x 2.5 cm
Bequest of Liliane Patzer

Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Guadalupe Ruiz moved to Switzerland in 1996 to study Graphic Design. She received a bachelor’s degree in Photography from ECAL in Lausanne (2002) and ZHdK in Zurich (2006), followed by a master’s degree in Fine Arts from the Institute Art Gender Nature HGK Basel FHNW (2019). In 2018, she published Lupita, je garde un abricot pour toi dans l'abricotier. Je lui ai dit de t'attendre., a book in which she tells the story of her hometown to her son, through images and words. In 2025, she received one of the Swiss Art Awards. Guadalupe Ruiz lives and works in Biel/Bienne.