David Renggli is a Swiss artist (b. 1974) who lives and works in Zurich. He attended the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. He does not limit himself to a specific medium – he rather explores his creations in paintings, sculptures, collages and installations. They are often characterized by poetic, humorous and critical components. Renggli's art operates against the loss of meaning of the immediate reality surrounding us in everyday life and against a dulling of perception in today's excessively mediatized world.
These works, created over the years, do not stand alone but are united by constant media-reflexive aspects and also appropriations and reinterpretations of everyday or art-historically traditional visual languages. References to fashion magazines or ironically connoted comments on automobiles appear, as can be found in the SUV Paintings: They address the subtle attributions and promises that car manufacturers give to vehicles. Renggli wants to evoke the supposedly shameful feeling when looking at his almost outsider-like works similar to the feeling of wanting to acquire such an SUV. A focal point in his SUV Paintings is the idea of branding, that oscillates between both an upgrade and a devaluation.
In the case of the Desire Paintings - large paintings on jute nets and wood - the classical approach of looking at a painting is put to the test, since the reception is very processual in that the perceived pictorial relationships change with every movement. The perfect position in front of the Desire Paintings sometimes deviates from the position one is used to taking in front of classical painting. Especially from a non-traditional position, for example from the side, do the elements in the picture harmonize, and a shape and its shadow come together to form a coherent overlap.
With his works, Renggli serves the most diverse clichés of yearning, desire and ideas of the idyllic, and breaks these in order to create a confrontation.
Renggli has exhibited in various institutions including Kunsthalle, St. Gallen; Kunstmuseum, Bern; Migros Museum, Zurich; Kunsthaus, Zurich; Villa Merkel, Esslingen; The Swiss Institute, New York; and the Tate Britain, London.
His work is part of renowned collections such as the Julius Bär Collection, Zurich; Kunsthaus, Zurich and Migros Museum, Zurich.