Gold And Other Coasts

«Gold And Other Coasts» is an essence of 60 landscape images that are part of a larger investigation into the visible processes of transformation in the environment. Conceptually, they are anchored in the interplay of geography, autobiography and metaphor, which, according to Robert Adams, is the essence of landscape pictures. The images were created in the artist’s home in 21st century Switzerland and his places of longing in France and Germany.

«Everything is nature – there is only a degree of naturalness», postulated the Zurich architect, landscape designer, and visionary of ecological awareness in the 1980s, Eduard Neuenschwander.

Climate, time, chance, and probability shape the environment through dynamic optimization processes: stones, mountains, valleys, lakes, rivers, seas, microorganisms, plants, animals, and man are part of these natural – that is, chemical, physical, and biological – processes.

Through his cultural practices, man intervenes in these processes. He cultivates the land and invents agriculture, becomes sedentary, and builds houses and factories. He connects them with roads, railways, and airplanes, organizes himself into villages, towns, and agglomerations.

The buildings created by man are also subject to constant processes of change. They are created, altered, and maintained – as long as they serve a purpose. If they are neglected or abandoned, they decay and nature is taking over again.

The images of «Gold And Other Coasts» depict real places with which Reto Gadola is familiar, places of longing. They were created between 2019 and 2024.

His home on the Zurich Gold Coast forms the starting point of the investigation. In the booming metropolitan area around the economic hub of Zurich, centuries-old village structures and identities are being destroyed systematically. Rampant real estate speculation is fuelling this periurbain «densification» and caters to the needs of a wealthy – often international – clientele.

In stark contrast, Mérigny in the French Département Indre, an agriculturally shaped village in the French province, tells a different story. After a brief economic boom in the late 19th century, the town was left behind economically and is now marked by rural depopulation and abandoned houses. Here, Reto has found a photographic home.

The situation in the southern French Sète is more nuanced, a port town on the Mediterranean where Reto spends his summer holidays with his family. Situated at the key junction between sea and land, the town gained economic significance with the construction of the Canal du Midi at the end of the 17th century. Over the course of the 20th century, its prosperity faded – the seaside resorts initiated by President Charles de Gaulle in the 1960s were realized elsewhere. Sète remained seafaring, rough, and rugged.

Recently, Reto has often been in the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, still a center of global trade, cosmopolitan, and shaped by a turbulent history. It is not small rowing boats, as on Lake Zurich, that define the dimensions and materiality of the place, but huge container ships, port facilities, and the transport arteries of post-war reconstruction.

The photographs of «Gold And Other Coasts» are two-dimensional representations of the real environment, cropped and framed. In the service of a heightened degree of abstraction and a less obvious connection to time, color information has been omitted. They are black and white, in a square format, and their content is guided by an architecturally informed gaze.

The images are a kind of empirical visual analysis of phenomena and conditions in natural landscapes and in those altered by man. Spaces, buildings, and places are depicted in their simplicity or complexity, or as ghostly appearances at night. Natural and culturally induced processes of transformation in the environment become visible – driven by climate, time, chance, and probability.

Say it, no ideas but in things –
nothing but the blank faces of the houses
and cylindrical trees

bent, forked by preconception and accident –
split, furrowed, creased, mottled, stained –
secret – into the body of the light!

William Carlos Williams in Paterson

Photobook (in preparation)

In a multi-stage condensation and selection process, 60 images are identified from a larger body of work and arranged in a sequence that follows the logic of leafing through a book. The explanatory text above could provide the intellectual framework in order to better anchor the imagery and at the same time expand its scope of meaning.

The dummy gives an idea on how the photobook could feel and look.

Exhibition in Staefa/Zurich, 2024

«Gold And Other Coasts» was shown to a larger audience for the first time at the local art days in the artist’s home town. In the vaulted cellar of a 18th century winemaker’s house, 25 of the 60 pictures were regrouped into 5 sequences: Human Touch – Interactions – Ghosts – Landscape – Home. One of the highlights of the show was the guitar performance Gold And Other Gosts by Daniel Erni.

Exhibition design and non-destructive craftsmanship by the artist.

Print sales

All images of the series are available in various sizes as limited editions. Archival inkjet pigment print on sustainable Hahnemühle Fine Art Bamboo paper. Float mounting, natural hornbeam frame from local Zurich production. Anti-reflective white glass with UV protection. Printing, mounting and framing is hand made by the artist.

For details and prices please contact Reto.

Gold And Other Coasts

Everything is nature

Places of longing

Processes of transformation

Photobook (in preparation)

Exhibition in Staefa/Zurich, 2024

Print sales