Lex Vögtli – Wenn der Himmel kippt exhibition and Collagen catalog

Born in 1972 in the canton of Solothurn, Lex Vögtli is a Swiss visual artist best known for her large-scale collages made from found printed matter. Winner of the exhibition prize of the city of Solothurn in 2022, the local art museum presented her works in a solo show the subsequent year. In this post we show material produced for the show as well as a catalog dedicated to her collages that was published on the occasion by edition clandestin.

The title of the exhibition Wenn der Himmel kippt translates to When the sky [or heaven] tilts and was taken from the work that makes the key visual for poster and flyer. The baroque abundance of the detailed imagery finds itself balanced by a typography of straight-forward appeal. Urs Amiet and Isabel Kerle of Solothurn-based studio amietkerle chose Production Type’s Media Sans as headline typeface for this project. In their advertising material, they create some sort of logotype for Lex Vögtli’s name and tilt the exhibition name by 90 degrees, ragged-left. In other cases they find interesting spatial deviations in headlines to stimulate the eye of the spectator.

In the advertising material and in the book, Media Sans is used in three of its five widths – normal, Extended, SemiCondensed widths – and in several weights. It is accompanied by SangBleu Versailles for the reading text, designed by Ian Party for Swiss Typefaces and part of the larger SangBleu series. The combination of a sans serif for titles and a serif for the text might seem conventional at first sight, but the mastery and refinement in which the designers realize the concept should leave everyone in awe.