The landscape, either suggested, interpreted or in the process of disperse in veil of mist is the main topic of the 1948 born Swiss painter Michael Biberstein. Often his work is directly associated with landscape painting. In principle this is correct, but more in an abstract than a literal sense. His work does not name or interpret landscape, it rather convey a feeling of distance and sublime silence. Exhibition or work titles such as "The apotheosis of the human mind in seeing the landscape", "Compressors and Accelerators", "Endorphin-accelerator" or "…towards silence" emphasizes the shift from the landscape to the atmospheric. "I see paintings as "seeing machines". For me, the world only exists as a sequence of physical processes. This is not because I believe the world to be described to my full satisfaction based on the knowledge of the so far unveiled physical laws - unfortunately not. It is more the empirically extracted insight that our knowledge for a comprehensive theory of everything is not sufficient - and probably never will. This believe let me be a militant agnostic. I'm not a mystic. I am, as I mentioned before a militant agnostic. Will say: Don't tell me that anyone has a clue what this live is all about. However I must admit that I don't see religions as worthless figments of hereafter imaginations - on the contrary: As religions are to a great extend determining for today's state of mankind and appear wherever humans are, one has to assume that that they cover one or multiple fundamental needs of the human being. What I try in and with my work is on the one hand to find out on an empirical way the relationship between "picture languages" created in the name of metaphysical dogmasystems and there physiological effects on the observer and on the other hand to produce the same physiological effect: The effect of an conjuring trick without hocus-pocus, as a friend of mine once mentioned. Often my paintings are described as "mystical" and "meditative". The former is not true as the paintings are not based on mystical expectations, the latter is correct if it only describes the state of internalization, relaxation and contemplation. " Michael Biberstein was born in Solothurn, Switzerland in 1948, where he lived until 1964 when he moved to the United States. There he finished his formal education, including an important year with David Sylvester at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia, where he studied art history. As a painter he is self-taught. Michael Biberstein has lived and worked in Sintra, Portugal since 1978. Since 1974 numerous one-man shows in Europe and overseas, among many others 1989 Kunstverein Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf; 1991 Museo Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lissabon; 1992 Kunstverein Salzburg; 1995 Kunstverein Freiburg i.Br.; Museu de Arte Contemporañea, Funchal; Kunsthalle Winterthur; Centro de Arte Moderna, Lissabon; 1997 Institut für Moderne Kunst, Nurenberg; 1998 The Bron House of Art, Brno; 2001 Center for Contemporary Art, Prag; Tallinn Art Hall; 2002 Helmhaus, Zurich; 2003 MEIAC, Badajoz, Spain; 1992 participation at the Documenta IX in Kassel. The show will remain on view through Saturday, October 9, 2004 at the Jamileh Weber Gallery, Waldmannstrasse 6, CH-8001 Zurich. Hours: Tuesday through Friday, 11am to 6pm, Saturday 10am to 4pm and by appointment. For further information or photographs please contact the gallery, phone: +41-1-252 10 66, fax: +41-1-252 11 32 email: info@jamilehweber.com, www.jamilehweber.com