“When I started to pour paint, there was no return—you can’t un-pour it,” says the American artist Pat Steir. “It’s there. So I could start a new one, but I couldn’t change what I had. Like life.” Steir’s career began in the 1960s, in illustration. Distracted by Minimalism and Conceptual art, by Mark Rothko’s canvases of distilled color, she began pairing images and text as a way to question perception. In the 1980s, when she delved into Zen Buddhism and Daoist thought, her work took a lyrical turn. Steir’s new approach was performative: it saw her pouring paint onto large canvases. For this solo show in Zurich, which coincides with the city’s gallery weekend, Steir has creeated a new series of “Waterfall” paintings. —Elena Clavarino