Petra Cortright Unveils Debut Solo Exhibition In Switzerland | On View At Zeughaus Teufen

On view: June 21 – October 5, 2025

American artist Petra Cortright, represented by Berlin-based SOCIÉTÉ, will unveil her first solo exhibition in Switzerland at Zeughaus Teufen, titled Paper-Thin Wood Veil Wide Range Hop Suisse!. On view from June 21 – October 5, 2025, the exhibition presents a new, site-specific body of work conceived exclusively for this occasion, including digital paintings on wood, video projections, and floating textile installations. This exhibition extends Cortright’s presence in Switzerland, building on her presentation of the video installation sapphire cinnamon viper fairy at Art Basel 2025’s Unlimited sector with SOCIÉTÉ, on view through June 22.

The project is based on an extensive image archive from Appenzellerland Tourismus AR, comprising over a thousand photographs – landscapes, traditions, architecture, and everyday scenes. Together, these images form a kind of visual self-portrait of the region.

Cortright gained access to the archive on June 1, 2023. The collection spans panoramic views, close-ups, village scenes, and folkloric motifs – a visual narrative situated between local tradition, tourist marketing, and digitally curated ideals. For over a decade, Petra Cortright has been working with digital source mate- rial, translating it into her distinctive visual language. She feeds the images into a personal archive of brushes, textures, and software filters that she has developed over many years. In a process akin to digital painting, she weaves these elements into intricate compositions – atmospheric, ornamental, and layered. Her works often evoke the lightness and color of Impressionism, earning her comparisons to a 'digital Monet'.

For the first time, Cortright’s works on wood will be presented alongside projections and floating textile pieces that drift like translucent veils through the exhibition space. The result is a poetic and intimate vision of Appenzellerland – one that comes from the outside yet resonates with surprising closeness. Not analytical, not ironic, but tender and radically beautiful

"I can’t make the images more beautiful" Cortright said in a Zoom conversation. ''The reality there is already too beautiful." 

Her commitment to beauty lies at the heart of her artistic approach – particularly at a time when art is often defined by discourse, critique, or disruption. Cortright, by contrast, embraces beauty as a legitimate force: both allure and challenge. With this exhibition, Zeughaus Teufen opens a dialogue between local self-image and global digital image production. What happens when an algorithmic gaze meets a tradition-rich visual landscape? When software aesthetics encounter tourist iconography? Petra Cortright’s works respond to these questi- ons in the form of images.

A carefully designed publication will accompany the exhibition, published by Jungle Books and designed by Samuel Bänziger, Rosario Florio, and Larissa Kasper. The 48-page, thread-bound booklet (297 × 297 mm) presents Cortright’s new series, paired with poems by artist Tina Braegger.