Curated by Lionel Bovier

Between 1961 and 1965, an artist using the pseudonym Vern Blosum made forty-four paintings of common objects in the style of Pop art. These attractive artifacts were sold by Leo Castelli to prestigious collections, while the abstract paintings to which the artist would devote most of his working life achieved little worldly success. This summer at Kunsthalle Bern, curator Lionel Bovier will assemble nearly the entire oeuvre of Blosum’s brief vogue. A catalogue raisonné of this work is also in preparation. However, the artist, who has lived to see the revival of interest in Blosum, will offer no further information on this occasion and thus will perpetuate his silence as to whether the project was (and continues to be) a comment on market-driven cynicism or merely a symptom of it.

— William E. Jones