Loredana Sperini, Zurich

This review appears in the March/April issue of Art In America

Loredana Sperini’s recent show “Tra di Noi” (Between Us), at Freymond-Guth’s new space in the Löwenbräu complex, continued the Swiss artist’s fascination with contrasting materials.  Sperini, who was initially trained in fiber arts and has a strong background in craft, pursued an art education only later.  She has been working with a multitude of materials and in very disparate forms, like wax, drawing, fabric, sculpture, found ceramic, and installation, since the beginning of her career in the early 2000s.   Here, as elsewhere, she juxtaposed soft with hard and warm with cold materials, revealing the tensions between the natural and manufactured worlds.

Sperini’s current formal interest is the crystal, which she references in the 10 wall-hung mixed-medium pieces, two floor sculptures and a wall installation on view, all untitled and made specifically for the exhibition. Despite often being ridiculed as a new-age accessory (crystals are historically associated with healing and spirituality, black magic, and sometimes endowing owners with superhuman abilities), the beauty of their structure is undeniable. The crystal’s allure  is in large part due to its geometric regularity and its ability to reflect and refract light. And our admiration for these naturally occurring structures, their strength and brilliance, has inspired us to artificially interpret and try to fashion them for hundreds of years.

And yet Sperini’s focus is on fragility, rather than the sturdiness that we associate with gems.  In her nine small paintings  made of wax on panels of cast cement, the fragility of the  composition itself is emphasized. The artist fills cracks that she herself creates in the cement casts with layer  upon layer of different colored waxes, sculpting and shaping  angles and lines into the malleable wax surface that allude to  the geometric crystal forms. The translucence of the wax layers establishes a visual allusion to the refraction of light in actual crystals, and the effect is mesmerizing.

In her work, Loredana plays with our ambivalence toward the crystal, alluding to both its beauty but also to the dubious connotations it evokes in contemporary culture. For example, an untitled wax and cement sculpture resembles a large chunk of an amethyst geode, the type one might find in a new-age bookstore. One side is grey and rocklike, while the other features purple wax in angles and planes. A violet wax arm, an element that directly links this work to Loredana’s previous wax sculptures of body parts, hangs under one of the vertices, as if it were spurting from it. Contained within the cupped hand is a disembodied pair of human lips. This piece evokes the human body’s fragility and uncertain placement in the world.

In an approximately 7-foot-high floor sculpture, a black polygon frame is attached to a black mirrored glass quadrilateral. Reflections of the gallery in the glass evoke the fractured and multiplied reality implied by the many faces of a crystal.  The conflict between nature and culture, which leads to the battle for control over our environment, is also a subtext exemplified through the juxtaposition of body parts and geometric forms, as well as man-made and natural materials. But most importantly, the work exhibits a love for materiality and form, a tenderness for beauty, and a respect for craft that is often absent in contemporary practice.

Perfect Synthesis: The Installation Art of Sarah Sze – from 2008

Sarah Sze, Proportioned to the Groove, 2005, as Installed In Artists In Depth at the Museum of Contemporary Art, ChIcago, 2008. Collection Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Bernice and Kenneth Newberger Fund.

This article was published in December 2008 in Chicago Artists’ News, now defunct.  It was part of a series on collecting the ephemeral and immaterial.
Sarah Sze is a creator of complex and often contradictory ecosystems, and like ecosystems, her installations are sometimes ephemeral. Thousands of everyday objects, ranging from the miniscule to the large, are carefully and obsessively organized in spectacular configurations punctuated by empty space and connected by various mechanisms, lending her work its often imposing scale and architectural character. Sze’s work is composed of heterogeneous elements — household items, vegetation, and even water flowing through channels — which, once assembled, create fantastic worlds shot through with childlike wonder and scientific fascination.
Some of Sze’s preferred materials, for example, plastic bottles, bottle caps, forks, and buttons, are arranged in small microcosms of activity alongside sprouting vegetation and water sprinklers, attesting not only to the artist’s ecological concerns, but also to humanity’s apparently insurmountable attachment to consumer products and pollutants. Though Sze’s installations may at first appear as hodgepodges of everyday materials, the elements of her work are minutely arranged, making use of color coordination and patterning to evoke abstract imagery from a distance, and extraordinary animation upon closer inspection.

The unique quality of Sze’s work derives not only from her ability to juxtapose all these disparate elements; her splendid installations, at once spatially prodigious and delicate, are also ingenious feats of engineering. To install all these items, held together by wires that balance myriad miniature worlds, is an enormous undertaking — as is their de-installation and re-installation.

Sarah Sze, “Tilting Blue,” 2006, Malmo Konstall, Malmo, Sweden

How do museums collect Sze ‘s work, and what exactly is being collected when the pieces rely more on the ability of the artist to create a relationship between banal items than on the items themselves? And how do museums, after purchasing an installation, reinstall such a piece? Elizabeth Smith, Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art and curator of Sze’s 1999 MCA installation as well as the current show in which Sze is featured, “Artists in Depth: Works from the MCA Collection,” tells me that the documentation for these types of installations is crucial to the ability to reinstall at a future date. Curators at the MCA, with the help of Sze’s assistant, worked with photographs and written instructions to install the piece now on display. Storing the work is easy: since the pieces are small, they just need to be collected and labeled properly, and organized in a way that can facilitate future groupings.
If all the components of this installation are so commonplace, what exactly is the museum getting when it purchases such a piece — and can’t these items just be replaced by others of the same sort? This is the curatorial challenge with which Smith and other curators of conceptually driven, site-specific installations have to grapple. Smith remarks that “purchase includes not just the object(s) that are presented but also an understanding about the parameters of the installation (much like with the work of Dan Flavin or Sol LeWitt, to name a couple of other precursors to more conceptual installation works where following the artist’s instructions on how to recreate/install the work is as important as the object itself).”

Curators are now the caretakers not only of objects, but also of concepts and ideas. The work of Sarah Sze, at once complex and elegant, represents a perfect synthesis of both concept and object to create an intriguing intellectual experience.

Yto Barrada at Fotomuseum, Winterthur

Published in Art in America, March 2013. 

WINTERTHUR, SWITZERLAND YTO BARRADA

Fotomuseum Winterthur

It is difficult not to be suspicious ofexhibitions initiated or organized by corporations. After all, such shows serve to enhance the reputation of the funder in the eyes ofthe public. Therefore it was with some ambivalence that I approached Yto Barrada’s “Riffs,” Deutsche Bank’s Artist of the Year exhibition for 2011. (It debuted at the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, and has been touring through Europe and the U.S. since.) Fortunately, Barrada’s exhibition did not make grandiose political statements about the evils of globalization or modernity, which would have seemed disingenuous. Instead the three l6mm films and 5O-some photographs, made between 1999 and 2011, were thoughtful considerations of a place in transition and the passage of time.

“Riffs” focused on Tangier, Morocco, a cosmopolitan city at the core of many Westcrners’ fantasies of freedom and escape, where the Parisian-born artist was raised. In addition to its musical associations, the title alludes to Morocco’s Rif mountain region (a nexus of resistance to colonial rule), as well as to Cinema Rif, the movie theater in Tangier where Barrada cofounded and directs a film program; selections were shown in a screening room at the exhibition. This combination of meanings set the tone for the show.

Most of the photographs are medium-size and the colors are generally muted. While the press materials indicate that they document the current realities ofTangier, what makes the images striking is their evocation of things once there but now unseen. Two of the most impressive photographs dealing with history, memory and absence are Family Tree (2005) and Marks Left by a Football—Tangier (2002). In Family Tree, the minimalist composition features a light pink background with oval and rectangular spots of darker pink irregularly distributed over its surface. On closer inspection, we see that the pink background is faded wallpaper, and the dark spots are areas once covered by picture frames. It is an image of missing pictures whose existence is nonetheless recorded. Similarly, Marks Left by a Football preserves the memory of people practicing soccer on a scuffed wall.

In the S-minute l6mm film Beau Geste (2009), a group of workers organized by Barrada builds a cement support for a huge lone palm tree in a vacant lot. From the artist’s voiceover, we learn that the tree had been attacked by the landowner, who was attempting to circumvent a law which prohibits the sale of land where trees grow. The poetic action of the guerrilla gardeners is indeed just as the title announces—a nice gesture devoid of real impact. It will not prevent the owner from trying again or lead to any systemic change. The empty lot, surrounded by multistory buildings, hints at what once occupied the space, and the tree remains the only visible mark of its history.

Like most of the work in the show, the film is imbued with nostalgia for Tangier’s past—a past that is not visible but whose absence is felt in the present.

Froh Aussicht – Art on the Farm

Download the Froh Aussicht article from the September/October 2012 issue of Sculpture Magazine: froh Aussicht article

There are many examples of art projects using the natural landscape, of course going back to the Land Art movement of the late 60s and 70s, with artists not only locating their work in nature but utilizing the environment as material, as an existential part of the work.

But there is a new trend taking place in Switzerland with art projects and sculptures being placed and exhibited in the large expanses of the rural areas, thus creating a new way of viewing and appreciating art.  It is helpful to this strategy that people in Switzerland are very physically active, and around any given village or small settlement you will see people with Nordic walking sticks making their way through the green expanse of neighbouring fields for a nice afternoon hike.  This strategy gives a new meaning to the concept of public art and its public…

“Since we began this project, we have had about ten or more local people stopping by daily to check out the artwork on their way to the woods for their regular walks, and this is really new,” says Martin Blum, the founder of Froh Aussicht, a working farm in Canton Zurich which he has also turned into a sculpture garden since 2008.

The project began when Martin met a student at the University of Basel who, knowing about his farm, and about his interest to start an exhibiting venue there, approached him with the idea of using it for a temporary installation.  In the first year two temporary projects were developed and installed: Heavy Cloud by Mia Marfurt, a part of a brick wall inserted into the grazing field of Froh Aussicht’s cows, commenting on the construction development surrounding the farm and its encroachment on the natural landscape, and a study by the collective Airtrain, whose practice is between public art and performance.  Ironically, Heavy Cloud had to be removed in 2010 because it itself was an intervention in the land, and according to Swiss authorities, despite it being private property, it was not safe for the land.  Thus another layer is added to the question of what is private and what is public.

Every year since then, Martin Blum, who is also a practicing artist and farmer, has supported the installation of two projects. The New York-based Swiss artist Christophe Dräger created an electrical maze based on the one in the movie The Shining for the same grazing cows.  The grass underneath the electrical wires grew while the rest was eaten by the cows during the four month duration.  Amazingly, the labyrinth that was formed in true Land Art fashion was visible from space at the end of the four months.  Other artists also integrated the space of the farm and its resources within their projects.  Their interventions were direct responses to the land and the concerns around that very particular space, while others also used the land as a material.

Yet in 2010 a new guest temporarily moved on the farm: the Migros Museum for Contemporary Art based in Zurich and funded by the supermarket chain Migros, hosted an exhibition of sculptures called The Garden of Forking Paths.  The idea came from an existing interest of curator and director of Migros, Heike Munder, in the tradition of “Follies”, architectural constructions popular in 18^th century French and English gardens that served no other purpose but to decorate and offer a Romantic element.

The projects in the exhibition, The Garden of Forking Paths, don’t so much utilize the land as material as many of the initial projects do, but rather as an exhibition space and maybe romantic inspiration, exactly as the original follies did two centuries ago.

One of the most humorous sculptures included in the show is a 3m tall snowman made of marble by Swiss artist Peter Regli, part of his Reality Hacking series.  The intervention of a wintry image in the summery landscape of the farm at the time of the exhibition offered a comical juxtaposition, and the material, so full of historical weight and gravitas, poked fun at the seriousness with which many sculptors approach their practice.  But it also alludes to the ambiguous position that the farm occupies in our psyche.  A place of both romantic meditation on nature and our inability to control it, but also the place where we are most in control of nature, where our culture wins over the forces of nature.  Thus a snowman that is made of universally available material during a certain season, snow, is now sculpted out of one of the most precious building stones.

Another interesting project dealing with the duality of nature vs. culture on a farm is Fabian Marti’s Heroic Dose, a small greenhouse decorated with psychedelic swirls in black and white, growing psychoactive plants, including cannabis, opium poppy and others.   The plants that grow in the greenhouse are the ones found in nature, but can be turned into drugs through human intervention, just as agriculture has domesticated plants that grew in the wild.  Therefore the farm is the frontier on which the battle between humans’ power to control their environment and the forces of nature is most bitterly fought.

Then there was the horrible post-modern installation of Liz Craft, the Los Angeles based artist, which really took the idea of the “exclusively decorative architectural element” of the folly to extremes.  Mixing all sorts of materials, bronze, wood, gypsum, and others, as well as styles, Liz Craft creates a mishmash unforgettable for its heavy-handedness.  Ms. Craft went so far as to import a real tree for her installation rather than integrate the existing trees on the farm.  Now that’s real folly…

With the departure of the Migros Musem’s exhibition, Martin Blum is in the process of planning for the upcoming year.  He is currently getting ready to host the production of a music video by Roman Keller & Christina Hemauer, featuring the Rap musician “Big Zis” and in April there will be the opening of a piece by Swiss sculptor Bob Gramsma as well as a performance by Lutz/Guggisberg. In the fall Swiss artist Isabel Krieg will also contribute a sculpture to the ongoing project.

The success of the collaboration with Migros strengthened Martin Blum’s conviction that exhibiting work in this new way is not only good for art but also good for his farm’s business.  Martin estimates that about 3000 people visited the Migros Museum’s exhibition and were thus introduced to contemporary art in an unlikely place, a place of tradition and ritual.  So, not only is the farm a battleground between humans and nature, but it is now, thanks to Martin’s initiative, also a more engaging battleground between the contemporary and the past, where both are set up to learn from each other.

Picks from Art Statements, Art Unlimited and Swiss Art Awards

After seeing so much art lately, I have to say that I’m a bit burnt out, especially from the sheer quantity of banality that passes for greatness. I’m bored of hearing gallerists and artists throw around the term “conceptual art” for any scribble, blank page, or lack of content and form. Besides the fact that conceptual art was once upon a time interesting when it was first being truly explored in the 60s, I think that now more than ever artists actually have a responsibility to communicate.  Relying only on their “concepts” doesn’t cut it.  But that doesn’t mean there aren’t artists whose work is conceptually strong, and who manage to transcend this condition – they are the few that actually make the connection.

Maybe due to overload, or ennui, my benchmark was set quite high this year – that’s why I found the Swiss Art Awards to be rather bland.  There were, however,  a few projects that stood out (unfortunately my choices don’t really coincide with the jury’s).

Navid Tschopp’s live skype projection and conversation between visitor (in the Swiss Art Awards exhibition hall in Basel) and himself (from his Zurich studio) – quite disconcerting (to be talking to a wall…), but fun and truly connective.

Cat Tuong Nguyen’s video of himself performing a street-crossing in mad traffic in Saigon.
(unfortunately I didn’t take a picture).

I am now seeing that I long for humor and social commentary….

Art Statements, like last year, was also rather weak with a few exceptions.

Dominick Lang (whose work I also saw at the Paris Triennale) at Hunt Kastner, Prague

Amalia Pica’s sculptures at Galeria Diana Stigter in Art Statements, really made me laugh – loved her work.

Rokni Haerizadeh’s A Place Beyond Good and Evil, Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, was really interesting and mesmerizing even, and the newspaper that was distributed along with the project was also good. It is an animation collaged on top of telecasts of the Iranian protests two years ago, along with Bosch-esque drawings of monsters and creatures on top of newspaper photographs also documenting the Iranian protests.

But by far the best piece in Statements was the video by Martin Skauen, Slideshow Johnny, a personal account of an experimental artist and his influences, but delivered in a hilarious and biting manner.

Then there was Art Unlimited….(unlimited financing for state-of-the art production costs…)
But even here there were some things to choose from.

ARIEL SCHLESINGER’s piece was suspenseful and kinda unsettling…will it explode?
Title | Untitled (Empty Room), 2012
Media | Gas tanks, propane, glass door, nozzle; dimensions variable

It was difficult not to be impressed by DAMIÁN ORTEGA’s installation – very photogenic
Architecture Without Architects, 2010
Mixed-media installation; dimensions variable

JIMMIE DURHAM
Title | Homage to Luis Buñuel, 2012
Media | Installation

PHYLLIDA BARLOW
Title | untitled: stage, 2011
Media | Timber, polystyrene, paint; overall dimensions: 1297⁄8 x 5311⁄2 x 1967⁄8 inches,
330 x 1350 x 510 cm

MELVIN EDWARDS was the type of conceptual, minimalist art that I wanted to see again and again – very good stuff
Pyramid up and down pyramid, 1970/2012
Barbed wire and chain

And so was ROBERT MORRIS’s eternally relevant and contemporary floor installation, which encouraged the visitor to find a path
Untitled (Scatter Piece), 1968/69
Felt, steel, lead, copper, zinc, aluminum, brass; indeterminate dimensions

FRANZ WEST
Title | Gekröse, 2011
Media | Lacquered aluminum

RICHARD WENTWORTH
Title | A Room Full of Lovers, 2012
Media | Steel, chain, and C – clamps

On NINA BEIER’s rug a dog would come and lie down every 10 minutes or so (I missed him) and would play dead.
Title | Tragedy, 2011
Media | Persian rug, dog; edition of 3

The ubiquitous UGO RONDINONE
primitive, 2011
60 parts: cast bronze patinated, stained-glass window, steel frame; site-specific
dimensions

ALICJA KWADE’s bricolage installation was great
In Circles, 2012
Metal plates, metal pipes, metal mesh, perforated metal, metal rails, steel plates,
steel bar, copper tubes, brass rings, brass rods, euro coins, wood moldings, wood
panels, glass panels, mirrors, door, bricks, window, neon tubes, lacquer, rust;
approx. 280 x diameter 1200 cm

VALENTIN CARRON is the new face of the Swiss Pavilion in the next Venice Biennale
Title | They I you he we, 2012
Media | Wrought iron; 393¾ inches, 1000 cm

JOËLLE TUERLINCKX
Title | The Working Palace (La Scène Primitive, acte Art Basel – Art Unlimited – 2012), 2012
Media | Decor (cyma of variable materials), variable wall sheeting (paper, variable pigments,
laser print on paper), different scenic elements (filament, cord, anatomic models,
paper beadlets …), variable lighting (LED, flashlight, theater spots, fair lighting)

One piece that I didn’t get to experience although I would have loved to was Mike Nelson’s After Kerouac.  The line was gigantic and I was on a tight schedule.

Koenraad Dedobbeleer at Mai 36 in Zurich

In March/April 2012 of Flash Art

Making sculpture of found objects has become as common today as it was shocking when Duchamp created his first readymade in 1915.  So it takes something fresh, different and let’s face it, unique, to make this sort of sculpture interesting.

And Koenraad Dedobbeleer, the Belgian artist, mostly delivers with constructions reassembled or slightly altered from pieces of old functional objects.  The most successful and engaging works are those that use parts of old tools or furniture which Koenraad transforms through a reconstruction often so absurd that the former object and its function are completely lost.  But while the original object is no longer recognizable, the aura of the past remains.  Resigned Astonishment is a chair-like object that is neither chair nor functional, but is an homage to modernist design, like many of his other  sculptures.

The artist is clearly attracted to the long history of craftsmanship, so the source objects he chooses were hand-made, not industrially fabricated.

The transformation of the old into new also points to Ornament and Crime, modernist architect Adolf Loos’s 1929 text criticizing ornamentation and promoting the return to a simple craft-conscious modern art.  The titles of the sculptures are phrases directly taken from Loos’s texts.  A marble tabletop reminiscent of café tables at the turn of the 20^th century is hung on the wall as a painting might be, with the title Revolution Always Comes From Below, a quote fragment from Loos’s 1897 text which continues with ..”and in this case below is the craftsman’s workshop.” The double-entendre is clever: creating an art object out of a utilitarian one just by changing its position was indeed revolutionary once upon a time, but maybe even more revolutionary is the return to craftsmanship at a time when the art world most champions those artists that use prefabrication and outsourcing as their modus operandi.

The inherent historicity of the source objects used, which is deconstructed in the process of reassembling, along with the mysterious titles, allow the viewer to dream and create personal associations with each piece, maybe recalling objects from their youth.  And in many regards, that’s the unique element in Dedobbeleer’s work, a concept that has become rather obsolete in contemporary art.

“Manual Labor” by Oscar Tuazon at Eva Presenhuber, Zurich, CH

In March/April Flashart

The Paris-based American Oscar Tuazon’s current exhibition in Zurich continues his exploration of DIY architecture, which has been a constant interest throughout his practice.  Here he also moves beyond that, however, to also highlight the friction in art and society between man-made and industrially-made objects.  Tuazon’s work accentuates the tension between the expected uselessness of art objects and the utility of the industrially manufactured by merging both elements into his pieces, creating a hybrid form that also obfuscates its utilitarian origins.

His conclusion is presented through a series of constructions that create new ways of experiencing space through the juxtaposition of wood and metal beams, in some cases with concrete and marble, forming geometric shapes, which force the viewer to look and sometimes even walk through, around, and into them for a full effect.

One piece that balances the line between functionality and inutility most clearly is White Walls, the passageway in the form of something like a trapezoid depending on the angle from which you look, made of metal beams elevated on a concrete platform about 4 inches off the floor, separating and connecting two of the three exhibition rooms.  Of course the need to connect the two rooms was manufactured by Tuazon himself, almost as a challenge to come up with an interesting solution to the space constraints he himself imposed.

Not only is the way we experience space a topic for Tuazon here, but as the title of the exhibition confirms, the hard work associated with making art, and namely the art that includes the actual mark of the artist’s hand.  Tuazon takes a stand against the usual contemporary art suspects who seem to despise making, and choose to outsource that work to their employees.  Granted with help, but primarily with his own hands, he constructs spaces that offer solutions, not necessarily to existing problems, but to our need for experience.  In his own words, «I don’t have ideas, I just go to work.» And true to this motto, his work brings us back to the times when art was primarily made, not exclusively conceived.

Societé Réaliste in Zürich

In Flash Art, January/February 2012: download the PDF here

Anne Mosseri-Marlio Gallery, Zürich, CH

At first, Société Réaliste’s Zero Euro (2010) and Infinite Dollar (2011) sculptures seem like facile comments on the economic situation and the stability of the political structures supporting them.

However, knowing the research-laden process of the politically engaged French collective, it was not a surprise to find that aspects from the history of symbols, economy and power were embedded in those simple signs. For their Swiss gallery debut, they explore the connection between writing and architecture. In the impressive wall installation Commonscript (2011), 24 stills from The Fountainhead (Société Réaliste’s recreation of the eponymous 1949 Ayn Rand movie, but sans people and sound) bring the viewer further and further into a media mogul’s office overlooking the modernist city below. These are interspersed by 24 enamel panels with short quotes by Howard Roark, Rand’s hero of extreme individualism and integrity. Changed from the singular to the third person plural, the quotes take a much more ominous character, as they seem to describe an elite group concerned only with protecting its own interests. The juxtaposition of quotes and architectural images creates a convincing indictment of capitalism, as the “they,” the power holders, “will not consider anybody’s judgment but their own.”

Modernism’s idealistic failures are the sub-text of the exhibition throughout. From Le Corbusier’s plan of La Ville Radieuse, which appears at the center of Hazard Abolished (2011), an almost architectural transcription of the English translation of a Stéphane Mallarmé poem; to the lightboxes that criticize the bombastic architecture they represent with short and poignant comments like function as fiction as function; and ending with Fingerprint Architecture: Switzerland (2011), an installation of a pile of books laid out in the same pattern as the design of the cover and inside pages, but that in fact represent empty fingerprint books totaling the number of undocumented migrants to Switzerland in 2010 — the work of Société Réaliste is a philosophical battle against the myths that we hold dear about our society’s liberties and values. And for this exhibition, this philosophical battle chooses the gallery as its site, a highly contested space, where capitalism and utopianism clash to create a hybrid form: reality.

Art Unlimited 2010

Even at Art Basel, the Politics of Culture – this review appears on Artslant Worldwide

Comprised of special installations by individual artists, the Art Unlimited section of the influential fair Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland, always seemed an attempt by the gallerists to feel a little more museological. This year’s edition of Art Unlimited held few surprises. Doug Aitken, Bill Viola, Urs Fischer, Ugo Rondinone, Sigmar Polke, Dan Flavin, Ryan Gander, Christian Marclay. In this crowded field of art stars and icons three installations, with their strong and strange takes on the intersection of culture and politics, stood apart.

Two years after her late career autobiographical-documentary masterpiece, The Beaches of Agnès, the eighty-two year old French filmmaker Agnes Varda organized an installation (presented by Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris) where she revisits the beach as a poetic. For this work, Varda created a beachside cabana, complete with beach chairs and sand, perfect for drinking some beer and lounging around while watching a game. But the TV screen played the gruesome movie The Mediterranean, with two r’s and one n, between Sete and Agde about a beached whale on the shores of Sete, France. Varda’s message resonates: We have become entirely immune to suffering, which has become mere entertainment. “Be careful. It’s (the whale) angry because the world is sick,” states Varda on the artist statement accompanying her work.

New York-based artist Tim Rollins and K.O.S. (presented by Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich) also managed to interestingly engage with uncomfortable political realities with his work on view from 1992, Animal Farm. Almost 3m high and 14 meters long and painted on the pages of Orwell’s iconic book Animal Farm, Rollins’ gigantic opus portrays various notorious political figures’ heads on different animals’ bodies. Made in collaboration with Kids of Survival (K.O.S.), a group of young people from the South Bronx from disadvantaged backgrounds, this work presents a different dimension of political commentary at Art Unlimited, one which plays with the tension between culture and politics over time. The rather unique collaboration of the artist with troubled kids from the South Bronx, started in 1984 by Rollins and continuing today, is an example of real engagement with real impact, in contrast to the often superficial political work shown and sold at the larger fairs.

Environmental politics emerge again in a subtle but arresting installation, The Conference, 2010, by Swiss duo Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger. Located in a darkened room, the installation’s composed of a large white table, surrounded by several black chairs that disappear into the blackness of the space. Alongside the table and chairs are common conference accessories, including laptops, notebooks, and coffee cups, complete with leftover coffee. A bright white light shines overhead, illuminating the white table, while the only color to penetratethe scene the bright red crystals that have taken over this sterile environment. The organic shapes of the natural world contrast beautifully with the perfect geometry of their human-derived counterpart. Steiner and Lenzlinger’s atmosphere serves as a reminder of humankind’s inability to fully control our environment, as much as we would like to. Nature will reclaim its territory, and humans, so used to making the decisions, will be left trying to deal with the consequences.

Swiss Art Awards 2010 – Pauline Julier

This review appears on Artslant Worldwide

Walking into yet another darkened viewing room at the annual Swiss Art Awards, I thought “when will all this video end?” Although it’s likely heresy to propose that most art videos are boring, after having watched more than 15 in an exhibition featuring 40 or so works by as many artists, I had had enough. After much thunderingly disappointing boredom, I decided to give this one last video one a chance…. and was surprisingly captivated by the beautiful cinematography of the cold, lonely winterscapes I was watching.

The bench I sat on vibrated with the howling of the arctic wind. I was feeling the sounds of the cold. After a few stunning frames of deserted icescapes, the image moved to the central street of an arctic town, with two rows of houses, on either side of the snow-buried street, and four people trudging through the snow and glacial wind hither and thither, seemingly directionless.

The 5-minute scene and its accompanying sound effects, along with the vibrating bench transported me to this cold distant place. It gave me the shivers. The video, Noah’s Nightmare, 2010, is the fourth by Geneva-based artist Pauline Julier, one of the 23 Swiss artists to win the 30,000 Swiss Franc award this year. Her video deals with the aftermath of a global disaster, when the controversial Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, accused of “giving a false sense of security” by some critics, would need to be utilized. Dug into the side of a mountain and accommodating more than 4.5 million seeds, the Seed Vault is meant to be able to replenish humanity’s supply of seeds and get agriculture back on track in the event of a natural or man-made disaster.

Noah, her futuristic fictional main character, “thinks it’s the end of the world and he’s all alone and nothing is alive,” Julier explained, as reported in the newspaper Icepeople.net. He envisions a post-apocalyptic world covered by ice, with few towns, and people “doing absurd things,” she continued. This is the world that I stumbled upon. In the middle of this deserted street scene, with its four disconnected characters, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ raw and carnal blues song “I Put a Spell on You” erupts from a corner-speaker, while the wind continues to howl and vibrate under me.

The passionate, animalistic sounds of the song are in stark contrast to the cold, isolated, and alienating scenery. Humanity seeps through even in the most hostile environments….With the end of the song, comes the lonely silence of the howling wind and the beautiful imagery of this icy archipelago off the coast of Norway. The film ends with an attempt to enter the Seed Vault and the hand-held camera moving away from the impenetrable door into the snow. Julier’s film is poetic and aesthetically stunning, while also presenting a haunting vision of our future.