Westward. Encounters with Swiss American Women

In the 1980s Linda Geiser also established herself as artist-craftswoman in New York. She was among the first people who exhibited erotica. “I made frames for mirrors with scenes from the Kamasutra. I could even exhibit them in the Kornfeld Gallery in Bern together with mirrors that I had decorated with angels. My mother was ashamed for me. After the first half hour all the erotic mirrors were sold, but only two of the angel mirrors!” She also wrote a play about Clara Schumann for the Music Festival in Interlaken (Switzerland) and another one about Heinrich Heine’s last mistress. Her “travel tours for women” – Seeing New York with Linda Geiser – also became popular in Switzerland.

“For years I explored Manhattan on foot and on the subway with groups of Swiss women – men were not actually excluded! For these visitors Pipilotti Rist’s exhibition was as sensational as a blues’ mass on Sunday in Harlem, signing the book of condolences for the death of Frank Sinatra in the most famous funeral home, or a performance in the theater during which we were all sprayed with water. Unfortunately the last two tours, which were solidly booked, were canceled after 9/11… though at that time the Swiss would have experienced the people of New York as never before and probably never again. But who knows, I may start the tours again.”