Ape Culture Fourteen Nineteen Nieves (Zurich)

Nieves (Zurich)

into its visual communication icon

Using an automatic drawing method called frottage (developed by Max Ernst in the 1920s) these rubbings were created using sheets of drawing paper and a selection of colored graphite sticks

often seemingly unaffected by the presence of a camera

and freewheeling experimentation with the medium of photography coalesce into a body of work that both parallels and defines the countercultural ethos of Steffens’ generation

Ape Culture Fourteen Nineteen Nieves (Zurich)Ape Culture traces the long cultural and scientific obsession with humanitys closest relatives. In the Western historical representations of modernity, depictions of apes were traditionally used to show the absence of culture. Standing as a liminal figure separating humans and animals, the ape has, since ancient times, played a central role in the narrative of civilisational progress. This book, which appears in conjunction with the exhibition of the