Verstummelung 71/6
Ingeborg Lüscher (*1936)

 

Ingeborg Lüscher, Verstummelung 71/6, 1971, cape and boots, wooden coat hanger, cigarette butts, glue and nitrocellulose varnish. Museo d’arte della Svizzera italiana, Lugano. Gift of the artist

Ingeborg Lüscher employs unconventional materials imbued with profound symbolic value to create conceptual and autobiographical works that challenge artistic norms and encourage contemplation of life’s transience. In Verstummelung 71/6, the artist arranges cigarette-butts on a cape and boots creating a graceful wave-like pattern. The butts – each bearing distinct traces depending on the temperament of its smoker – capture a moment in the existence of those who once smoked them, becoming a trace of a life cycle that flows into the cigarette through the breath. The act of smoking thus becomes a figurative synonym of the uniqueness of individual experience.