About
Simon Berger (b. 1976, Herzogenbuchsee) is a Swiss artist working with laminated safety glass. Trained as a carpenter and self-taught as an artist, he developed his technique of controlled impact in 2016. With a hammer, he sets precise blows into the glass; the resulting fractures form the image — up close a web of cracks, from a distance a face of almost photographic presence.
His practice spans portraits, spatial works and large-scale installations, and extends to site-specific projects in architecture and public space. His work has been shown internationally: Glass Ceiling Breaker, the Kamala Harris portrait at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington (2021); solo exhibitions at the Museo del Vetro in Murano, the Glasstress exhibitions of the Fondazione Berengo in Venice; and the permanent installation “The Four Icons” at The St. Regis Venice (2025). A monograph appeared in 2024. In 2026, he presents The Persistence of Presence at the National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.
Berger lives and works in Niederönz, Switzerland. His international career is managed by NOA contemporary.
In Simon Berger's work, glass is support and subject at once. Its transparency, its resistance and its vulnerability remain visible. Every impact changes the image and the material at the same time.
From a distance, faces and forms become legible. Up close, they dissolve into impact points, radiating lines and dense fields of fractures. Light passes through the glass, catches on the broken edges and shifts with the position of the viewer. The image is built from material, light and perception together.
The human face remains a recurring point of departure. Increasingly, the work extends into space: in exhibitions, public projects and architecture, glass is layered, suspended, mirrored or integrated into its surroundings. The same gesture that creates a portrait can become a structure, a reflection or an intervention in a room.
Live performances form a distinct part of the practice. In museums and cultural institutions, works come into being in front of an audience, blow by blow, until the image becomes visible in the glass.
Practice
Selected milestones
Selected exhibitions
| 2026, The Persistence of Presence, National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo
| 2026, Materiality, Saatchi Gallery, London
| 2026, Fractured Presence, HOFA Gallery, London
| 2025, Break . Construct, Carte Blanche, Hangzhou
| 2025, A Matter of Metamorphosis, Casarsa della Delizia
| 2024, Linking Worlds, Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo
| 2024, Glasstress 8½, Fondazione Berengo, Collateral Event of the Biennale di Venezia
| 2023 -2024, Facing Grace, Musei Civici di Treviso
| 2023, The Doors of Perception, Museo Civico di Sansepolcro
| 2023, Shattering Beauty, Museo del Vetro, Murano
| 2022, Le verre dans tous ses éclats, Vitromusée Romont
| 2022, Glasstress – State of Mind, Fondazione Berengo, Murano
selected Public Projects
| 2026, Parov Stelar, Promenadengalerien, Linz
| 2025 · Antoine Alléno, Fondation A. Alléno, Le Trianon, Paris
| 2024, Subway Car, Wynwood Walls, Miami
| 2023, Tosca, Opéra Comique, Paris
| 2022, Morphogenesis, Sculpture Garden Biennale, Geneva
| 2021, Kamala Harris — Glass Ceiling Breaker, Lincoln Memorial, Washington
| 2021, #WeAreUnbreakable, MTV Lebanon, Beirut
selected Architecture & Commissions
| 2025, The Four Icons, permanent installation, The St. Regis Venice
| 2025, Beduin, Argenteuil, Paris
| 2025, Chalet, Valais Central, Architects: Martignoni J.-M. & Eiro N. – Technica Architecture
| 2023, Lebe deinen Traum, Secondary School of Herzogenbuchsee
| 2022, L'espoir, Street Art Fest Grenoble, permanent
Selected Publications
| 2024, The Monograph 2019 - 2023, NOA contemporary
| 2023 Shattering Beauty. Museo del Vetro, Murano. Essays by Maria Cristina Gribaudi, Chiara Squarcina, Sandrine Welte, Adriano Berengo, Jean Blanchaert, Thea Hawlin
| 2022 Le Verre dans tous ses clats. Vitromuse Romont
Selected collections
| National Gallery of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sarajevo
| Museo del Vetro, Murano
| Vitromusée Romont
| Museo Civico di Sansepolcro
| Musei Civici Treviso, Treviso
| Beit Beirut, Beirut
| Woman's History Museum, Washington
| Museum Murten, Murten
| Public Collection of the City of Feuchtwangen, Feuchtwangen
| Gallotti & Radice Collection, Como
| Jessica Goldman Collection, Wynwood
| Frist Collection, Nashville, Tennessee
| Foundation Dr. Hanspeter & Christine Rentsch, Feldbrunnen
| NOA Collection, Lucerne
«… the destructive gesture of mere blows of a hammer on a glass pane ultimately ‘draws’ images of great visual intrigue that emerge from the tangle of powerfully orchestrated cracks.»
Sandrine Welte, art historian and curator