Daniel Göttin is a Swiss artist whose work is divided between site-specific work and coloured or painted objects for walls. He lives and works in Basel.
Education / residencies
Initially working as a technical draftsman for an engineering company, Daniel Göttin later entered the School of Visual Art in Basel, where he graduated in 1990.
Daniel Göttin has held an artist residency at the Fremantle Art Foundation (now Artsource), Australia in 1990, Donald Judd‘s Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas in 1993, the Shed im Eisenwerk, Switzerland in 1994, the:artist:network in New York in 2005, Youkobo Art Space in Tokyo, in 2007 and 2013/2014.
Technique
Göttin is working with common industrial material which can be paint, tape, wood, metal, polystyrene, plastic, carpet. The concept for an installation work depends on the site and its conditions. For his objects and paintings, he uses similar material. His interest and concept are to examine the subjective nature of perception, and playfully responds to the characteristics of an architectural site or space and activate the viewer’s relationship to it. In the series of works made of aluminum and painted MDF, due to their simplicity, the attention is directed to the space within the object, corresponding with the reflection of light and shadow. Thus creating a new quality of perception between concrete and abstract reality.
Inspiration
His artistic background relates mainly to Minimal Art , Concrete Art, and Conceptual Art. Besides these art tendencies he works also with aspects of Dada/Merz, Constructivism and Arte Povera.
For more than 25 years, Daniel Göttin has focused on making temporary and permanent site-specific installations and interventions, Art in Public Space, objects, paintings, drawings, collages and prints.
Relevant quotes
“Daniel’s art possesses clarity and thoughtfulness. But this clarity is not the result of a fixed or repetitive position or strategy. Instead, his art is iterative, responding to changing conditions and environments. Different aspects of his work, both the works made on the wall and the objects made for the wall, are inter-related and work off of and reflect on each other. There is a wholeness to what Daniel refers to as an entity—his body of work.” (Chris Ashley, Minus Space)
Notable distinctions
Daniel Göttin has been awarded grants from the City of Basel, Switzerland.
Exhibitions
Daniel Göttin has organised more than 60 solo exhibitions and projects since 1990 at museums, institutions, galleries, public and private collections as well as non-profits, throughout Europe, Japan, Australia, Mexico and the United States.
Together with his partner Gerda Maise he started the artspace Hebel_121 in Basel in 1998, offering foreign artists a platform for installative exhibitions. Hebel_121 is showing continuously.
