Ever since writer Claude Jaermann and cartoonist Felix Schaad have invented her, “Eva” has been scanning bar codes at the supermarket. Over the years, “Eva” has become the most popular newspaper comic strip in Switzerland. Day after day, the strips sum up everyday life and politics – to the point, mischievous, and always very funny. “The Swiss Psalm and Other Swan Songs” is an exclusive retrospective of original drawings by Jaermann/Schaad – from the beginnings with “Igor” and “Zwicky” published in the satirical magazine Nebelspalter, to “Eva” and the political caricatures in Tages-Anzeiger, a national daily newspaper. Jaermann/Schaad’s characters have very real problems to deal with: “Zwicky”, plumber and old-school pater familias, lives for his job and wants to move up in his firm, while feisty “Eva”, an underpaid cashier in a supermarket, always lives on the brink of poverty. A making-of movie documents the creative interplay of the two artists. Other cartoons which have inspired Jaermann/Schaad further help to situate their work in a larger context. Moreover, the exhibition takes a closer look at the political newspaper comic strip, a genre represented in Switzerland almost exclusively by Jaermann/Schaad.
Curator: Anette Gehrig