An elusive presence. Many of the bronze and granite statues in the streets and parks of Zurich have populated the city for almost a century. The artworks of local and foreign artists rightfully acquired honorary citizenship. Whether they are women in skimpy clothes or young nude males, everyday men are elevated to symbolic concepts. Even when mythology kicks in and misleads the viewer imagination, like with Hermann Hubacher’s Swiss Ganymede placed in Bürkliplatz, who instead of being kidnapped by the eagle-Jupiter asks the God of the Gods to be carried up to the Olympus. An open note of national immodesty that otherwise rarely manifests itself to foreign visitors, which are carried away by the beauty of the urban nature and yet by the architecture of a city in continuous improvement and cultural expansion.

Panta rhei!, a motto that does not apply to the eternal works of Hermann Haller, Rolf Brem and Karl Geiser to name a few. Works representing the daily life of the bather as well of the handworker change earthly habits and passions into myth. Art pieces that embellish majestic villas on Lake Zurich as well hidden public parks in the city, along an ideal line from the Southern district of Wollishofen up to Oerlikon. Seen every day by everyone but unknown to most people, sometimes with obscure origins hard to be traced back, this photographic reportage in black and white not only documents their presence in the city, but above all wants to emphasize their personalities. From the voluptuous bodies of the Schreitendes Mädchen by Eduard Bick and the Mädchengruppe by Arthur Tigram Abeljanz to the arrogant Kugelwerfer of Carl Leonard Fischer and the solitary contemplation of the young boys in front of the Museum für Gestaltung. A photographic exhibition that invites not only to look at but also to look inward.