Miriam Laura Leonardi: Hi Maria, I would like to ask you some questions.
For a while I have been imagining clubs that are installed as doorframes in the art context as responses to their space of exhibition. What about you, do you belong to any of those clubs?
Maria Bernheim: Strangely I don‘t think so, somehow I never fit anywhere, in Berlin I am not cool enough, In Paris I am too colorful, in London I am not posh enough and Zurich, well people seem to think I am a bit crazy. I think that this idea of clubs goes back to a longing for belonging that everyone feels.
Tell me about your gallery logo and its font.
It‘s funny that you asked, it‘s totally DIY, I kind of designed it myself from downloading random fonts online because I was on a super low budget, then drew out the M and asked the little brother of a friend to make it more proper. People who have never met me often think I am very old, from my name, so I wanted to play that card and make an old fashioned logo.
Your gallery in Zurich is located in the Kreis 1, its zip code is 8001. In Germany, Switzerland and Austria there is a saying «0815» to describe mediocre stuff. Is there a place you would attribute this number to, if it were to become a zip code?
Every place in the world likes to brag that they have the best something, but didn‘t God say in the Apocalypse «So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”
Do you think in numbers or images?
Images definitely, I don‘t understand numbers and Excel is my worst enemy.
In what kind of house do you see me living in 20 years from now?
A brutalist home, full of things accumulated over the years, somehow not related to each other but where each object has a meaning and a funny story.
Complete the sentence: The more VIP the …
Less taste.
Online Conversation conducted in October 2021.
Miriam Laura Leonardi (b. 1985 Lörrach, Germany) currently living and working in Zurich, Switzerland.Leonardi is the recipient of the Swiss Institute Residency program in New York and has recently been awarded the Prix Mobilière 2021.
Recent institutional exhibitions include You Received a New Memory, Atlas Brussels (2021) curated by Fabian Flückiger, Collaborate or collapse, Forde Genève (2020), Help in the Search, Fri-Art Kunsthalle Fribourg(2018). Recent institutional group exhibitions, Lemaniana, Centre d’Art contemporain Genève (2021), No Dandy No Fun, Kunsthalle Bern (2020).
