Simon Berger (born 9 April 1976) is a Swiss contemporary visual artist. He is best known for pioneering the art made by breaking glass with a hammer. His work has been widely exhibited around the world.

Life Berger was born on 9 April 1976. He grew up in Herzogenbuchsee, a municipality in the Oberaargau administrative district in the canton of Bern, Switzerland. Berger received professional training as a carpenter. He lives and works in his own studio in Niederönz.

Artistry Berger's glass portraits visualize a tension between strength and fragility through its motif, as well as his handling of the glass. The anonymous female portraits commonly share a powerful expression, their fierce gazes either piercing through the viewer, or fixating on an object beyond the frame. When approaching the artworks closely, these captivating images disintegrate into an amalgamation of cracks and jagged-edged shards of glass. Contrary to expectations of how glass should be handled cautiously to ensure its integrity, Berger makes use of the material's brittleness to develop his artistic language.

Reminiscent of sculptural techniques, a hammer is used to imprint the highlighted facial features into the sheet of glass. An initially transparent support of the image, the pane of glass, becomes partially opaque. The controlled shattering of the glass creates fractures which are subject to the material's physical laws. However, instead of collapsing into itself, the safety glass keeps the shards in place. These artworks fascinate by juxtaposing strength with fragility and expectations towards glass with Berger's approach to the material. The incidence of light is reflected by the fragments and cracks within the glass, making the artworks surface gleam and glisten and depending on the illumination, it seems as if the portrait itself were glowing. Through destruction, Berger allows beauty to emerge.

According to the French magazine RTS, Berger's work was influenced by the pop art movement and neorealism.

Berger made his first works on glass in 2017, in his studio in Niederönz, Switzerland. Soon, the originality of his technique put him in the media spotlight, and he was invited by many institutions or events such as the largest street art festival in Europe, the Street Art Fest Grenoble-Alpes, where he created a live diptych. The work can be seen in Grenoble at 113 cours Berriat in a window provided by the ARaymond company. In March 2021, Berger created a portrait of Kamala Harris, the Vice President of the United States, in partnership with the American National Museum of Women's History. In August 2021, he was associated with the "We are Unbreakable" project, sponsored by MTV Lebanon in tribute to the victims of the Beirut harbour explosion in 2020.

Exhibitions

Selected solo exhibitions:

2023 - Facing Grace, Museo Civico di Treviso, Treviso, Italy 2023 - Echoes, Fabien Castanier Gallery, Miami, United States 2023 - Beauty in Destruction, West Chelsea Contemporary, Austin, United States 2023 - Morphogenesis, Bundesverwaltungsgericht, St. Gallen, Switzerland 2023 - Reflected Identities, Gallotti & Radice, Milan, Italy 2023 - Untitled (solo exhibition and private event), Agence DS and Icone Gallery, Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, France 2023 - The Doors of Perception, Museo Civico di Sansepolcro, Italy 2023 - Shattering Beauty (curated by Sandrine Welte and Chiara Squarcina, in Collaboration with Berengo Studio), Museo del Vetro, Murano, Italy 2022 - Shattered, Aurum Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand 2022 - Unbreakable Identities, Galotti & Radice, Italy 2022 - Untitled, Agence DS, Paris, France 2022 - Untitled, Artstübli Basel, Switzerland 2022 - Le verre dans tous ses éclats, Vitromusée Romont, Switzerland 2022 - Cracked Beauties, Mazel Galerie, Brussels, Belgium 2021 - Simon Berger, Artstübli Gallery, Basel, Switzerland Selected art fairs: 2023 - Laurent Marthaler Contemporary, Montreux, Switzerland, Art Miami 2023 2023 Artstübli Art & Culture, Basel, Switzerland, Volta Art Fair 2022 (Duo Show with Eddie Hara) 2022 - Laurent Marthaler Contemporary, Montreux, Switzerland, Art Miami 2022 2022 - Geneva Biennale, Sculpture Garden, Geneva, Switzerland 2021 - Laurent Marthaler Contemporary, Montreux, Switzerland, Art Miami 2021

Selected group exhibitions:

2022 - Duo Show, reFORMATION (with Pierre-Alain Münger), Frankonian Museum, Feuchtwangen, Germany 2022 - Group Exhibition, Glasstress, Fondazione Berengo, Venice, Italy 2022 - Duo Show, Defekt (with Pierre-Alain Münger), Artstübli Gallery, Basel, Switzerland 2022 - Group Exhibition, Sculpture Garden, Biennale Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland 2022 - Group Exhibition, MAMCO (Musée d’art moderne et contemporain), Geneva, Switzerland 2022 - Spring Break, Mazel Galerie, Brussels, Belgium 2022 - Glasstress - State of Mind, Fondazione Berengo, Murano, Venice, Italy (curated by Adriano Berengo, Koen Vanmechelen, Ludovico Pratesi) 2022 - L’Ancien Musée de Peinture, Grenoble, France 2022 - Break That Wall, Mazel Galerie, Brussels, Belgium

Selected public installations:

2023 - Tosca, Municipality of Paris and Agence DS, Paris, France 2023 - Réflexion Cristalline, La Villa Calvi and Agence DS, Corsica, France 2022 - Transformation, Artstübli Art & Culture, Basel, Switzerland 2022 - L’espoir, Street Art Festival Grenoble (curated by Jerome Catz), Permanent Installation, Grenoble, France 2022 - Untitled (front window), Spacejunk, Grenoble, France 2022 - Serpenti, BVLGARI, Zürich, Switzerland, curated by Florian Paul Koenig 2022 - Broken Lives, Ministry of Traffic Safety of France, Paris, France, curated by Laurent Marthaler, Laurent Marthaler Contemporary 2022 - Kamala Harris, Abraham Lincoln Memorial, United States, curated by Philipp Brogli, Artstübli 2021 - We are Unbreakable, MTV Lebanon, Beirut, Lebanon, curated by Laurent Marthaler (2021) 2021 - Untitled, Golf Course Ätigkofen, Switzerland 2020 - Abribus, Geneva, Switzerland, curated by Jean-Damien Zacchariotto 2020 - Untitled, Geneva, Switzerland, Promenade du Lac, curated by Jean-Damien Zacchariotto 2020 - Untitled (front window), Artstübli Gallery, Basel, Switzerland 2016 - E=mc2, Motorex, Langenthal, Switzerland

Works in public and private collections Museo Civico di Sansepolcro, Sansepolcro, Italy Museo del Vetro, Murano, Italy Beit Beirut museum, Lebanon National Museum of Women's History in Washington, D.C., USA, Portrait of Kamala Harris Murten Museum, Switzerland Frankonian Museum, Feuchtwangen, Germany Vitromusée Romont, Switzerland Jessica Goldman Collection, Miami, USA Foundation Dr. Hanspeter & Christine Rentsch, Grenchen, Switzerland NOA Collection, Lucerne, Switzerland

References

Further reading