When Pierre-Alain Münger was a child, he loved smashing his toy cars with a hammer. Many years later, he still does that. Impressed and fascinated by car crashes, impact, destruction and deformation, the artist crashes real cars and uses them for his work. He meticulously studies and documents the effects, and creates imagery concerned with car crashes in various media. In his works, deformed cars and broken trees are silent victims and witnesses of the invisible kinetic forces.
The Swiss artist performs crash tests, smashing old cars into a metal sheet at 110 km/h. The frontal collision deforms metal, providing the artist with the effect and footprints he sought for. These tests require numerous hours of planning and preparation, but Münger’s works of various sizes and artistic expression would be impossible without it.
Münger is a true researcher and an expert on car crashes. After graduation from a design school and spending time as an assistant to Swiss sculptor Carlo Borer, the artist spent more than 15 years studying collisions and the deformation of shapes. His work does not only depict a ruined vehicle, but also a damaged lamp post, sign, tree or any other object. Sometimes, his work features imagery related to the act of rescuing. Whether it’s painting, sculpture or brilliant pen study on paper, the artist’s deep fascination with crashes is obvious.
2014
ST-ART, strasbourg, galerie radial art contemporain, strasbourg
(F)
2013
galerie soon-art, bern
galerie IVOKAMM,zürich
PAMCR8, vauffelin /chevrolet blazer 1988
PAMCR7, vauffelin /cadillac deville hearse 1973
ST-ART, strasbourg, solo-show/installation galerie radial art cont.,strasbourg
(F)
LONDON 13 art fair (GB), galerie IVOKAMM, zürich
2012
ST-ART, strasbourg, galerie radial art contemporain, strasbourg
(F)
KUNST 12 zürich, galerie IVOKAMM, zürich
summer group show - galerie radial, strasbourg (F)
Stroke artfair, galerie SOON Bern / münchen (D)
autopsie de l‘impact - soloshow / galerie radial, strasbourg (F)
PAMCR5, PAMCR6, Vauffelin
2011
Burgergalerie, Brienz
Kunstnacht Brienz, Brienz
WAREHOUSE, manegg-areal, Zürich
PAMCR4, Vauffelin
2010
Brienzer Kunstnacht, Brienz
pamcrash und vitra, teo jakob solothurn
pamcrash meets crash, Autoabbruch Safenwil
2009
Brienzer Kunstnacht, Brienz
Museum Kesselhaus, Berlin (D)
THIN AIR, Biel
Galerie Katapult Basel
2003
Kant. Jahresausstellung Kunstmuseum Solothurn
Gruppenausstellung Künstlerhaus S11, Solothurn
Jugendart Olten
Kunstsammlung der schweizereischen POST
Sammlung kanton Solothurn
Fränkisches Museum Feuchtwangen (D)