For the first retrospective in France dedicated to the Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn (1920–2012), the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris has commissioned the artist Albert Oehlen as curator to explore Josephsohn’s work in an unconventional way. Albert Oehlen (*1954) made a significant contribution to the renewal of German painting in the 1980s. The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris organised an exhibition of his works in 2009. Oehlen is a great admirer of Hans Josephsohn, whose work he discovered in the Kesselhaus Josephsohn in St.Gallen, near his home town. The Kesselhaus, which exclusively exhibits works by the sculptor, is both an exhibition and storage space, and most of the sculptures on display are on loan from this institution. Albert Oehlen’s examination of Hans Josephsohn’s creative process—the handling of the material, the role of the gesture, the detail and the tireless search—makes the oeuvre in the exhibition come alive.

The publication Josephsohn vu par Albert Oehlen, with photographs by Katalin Deér, is structured as a journey through the Josephsohn exhibition at the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, in which the visitor repeatedly looks back and examines Albert Oehlen’s presentation of Josephsohn’s work in the complex sequence of rooms. Apart from Albert Oehlen’s statement, which is also printed in the original German, there is no text in this book. It thus complements the exhibition catalogue published by Cornelius Tittel on the occasion of the opening, which contains various texts, reproductions of the works and a photo essay by François Halard, shot at the Kesselhaus Josephsohn.

Published together with Kesselhaus Josephsohn on the occasion of the exhibition Josephsohn vu par Albert Oehlen, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, 11 October–6 February 2025.