If Arthur Aeschbacher can be categorized among the affichistes -artists who work with posters, like Raymond Hains or Jacques de la Villeglé- he is also clearly distinguishable from them, not only because he was not part of the Nouveaux Réalistes movement, but also because he has taken an approach that moves away from their work in an unusual way.

In the first place, Aeschbacher’s work is informed by reflection on language ; it insists on verbal elements, isolating words, letters, and figures. Words and figures are made prominent but fragmented by systems of superimposition, collage, and erasure. Aeschbacher establishes subtle, unforeseen ties among the different writings on the poster that serves as his reference point. He creates a magic of numbers, but also ventures into the terrain of memory. He delineates a game (in the strongest sense of the word) between the aesthetic possibilities of the found object (the poster that is unpasted and then repasted with its parts transposed) and the semantic reconstruction of the posters, creating an intense, original poetic relationship between the written and the painted surface.

Gérard George Lemaire