Find more information here.
Illustration: © Maria Rehli
On jury recommendation, the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia has chosen to entrust the Swiss Pavilion at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia to the artist Latifa Echakhch. Living in Fully (Switzerland) with a French-Moroccan background, she has gained considerable international renown over many years in the contemporary art world. Latifa Echakhch has made a name for herself thanks to the fine balance between forcefulness and fragility in her interdisciplinary installations, her visual language including surrealist and conceptual elements, and her use of symbols that – in her own words – are both political and poetic.
More information here and in the press release.
The Venice Biennale 2019 ended a few days ago, after an exhibition period of almost seven months. The Swiss Pavilion was a great success thanks to the curatorship of Charlotte Laubard with the new commissioned work by artist duo Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz. It was incredibly well received by the Swiss and international media, and was often picked among the best pavilions of the Biennale, notably on artsy.net, news.artnet.com, theartnewspaper.com, garage.vice.com, Vogue Italia, W Magazine, designboom.com and many others. We are sadden to close up this edition but excited for the new projects to come at the Swiss Pavilion!
The Salon Suisse 2019 ' s l o w ' presented one opening event during the Biennale's opening days supplemented by three long weekends of events, talks and cultural happenings with invited guests such as artists, art historians, performers, musicians, cooks, choreographers, medical doctors and others, to explore the meanings and values of slowness as the main tool to question productivism and our society.
More images and information here.
From December 2019, Rein Wolf will be directing the Stedelijk museum in Amsterdam, NL. Alongside his dictartorship, he will pursue his role as juror for the Swiss Pavilion of the 2021 and 2023 Art editions of the Biennale di Venezia.
More information here.
The project team for the 2020 Swiss Pavilion is currently touring around Switzerland to get material for the upcoming their exhibition presentation in Venice in May 2020. To follow the team's moves across the borders of Switzerland:
https://swissbordertour.ch
Read more here.
To see more images click here.
22 – 24 November 2019
Closing performances at the Swiss Pavilion during the Biennale’s final weekend
During the closing weekend of the 58th Venice Biennale, taking place from November 22–24, 2019, the Swiss Pavilion presents reading performances by artists and performers Marbles Jumbo Radio and Julie Cunningham.
These final performances take place in the garden and sculpture hall of the Swiss Pavilion, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday November 22–24, every day from 10am to 1pm, and from 3pm to 5pm.
The official catalogue of ‘Moving Backwards’ at the Swiss Pavilion is now out!
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The publication includes statements by the artists, and various authors, experts and activists. It also comprises an essay by curator Charlotte Laubard on the viewers’ experience of Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz’s installation at the Swiss Pavilion; an essay by scholar André Lepecki on queer temporalities and poetics in relation to the notion of “moving backwards”; as well as a postface by Marianne Burki, Head of visual arts at the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. |
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The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia is pleased to announce Evelyn Steiner as next year’s Salonnière for the programme of the Salon Suisse taking place at the Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi during the 17th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia (23 May to 29 November 2020). Evelyn Steiner will be directing and hosting the Salon Suisse in 2020 around a theme to be released soon.
More about Evelyn Steiner here: https://biennials.ch/home/ProjectDetail.aspx?ProjectId=55
After a successful launch of the Salon Suisse s l o w coinciding with the opening of the 2019 Venice Biennale, the programme continues with three autumn salons in 19-21 September, 17-19 October and 21-23 November 2019.
For this year's Salon Suisse, the Salonnière Céline Eidenbenz (middle) with her co-Salonnières Victoria Mühlig (left) and Anja Radomirovic (right), were interested in questioning the rhythm of creation and its intrinsic slowness in a time governed by productivism and rapidity.
Click here for more information about the Salonnières.
While walking artist Hamish Fulton is currently exhibiting 7 pannels at Stadelhofen train station in Zurich titled Connecting the Footsteps of 21 Walks, let's look back at the artist's 1 hour 'walking performance' that took place during Salon Suisse in Venice in the courtyard of the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia last May. This year's Salon Suisse is titled 's l o w ' and is about slowing down our processes and finding one's own rhythm.
Currently in Zurich: https://haeusler-contemporary.com/hamish-fulton-tableau-zu…/
Salon Suisse: Retour de Venise
Saturday 17 August, 2.30-9.00pm
Jardin botanique alpin (JBAM), Meyrin, Switzerland
As an extension of the collateral event Salon Suisse at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia on the theme " s l o w ", the event “Retour de Venise” (return from Venice) takes place in Meyrin, near Geneva in Switzerland, with a whole day of discovery and relaxation. As part of the programme FACM@JBAM#2019! the event takes a stand on slow practices by offering guided strolling, a yoga workshop with artist Vidya Gastaldon, a presentation of the Venice Biennale with the 2019 Swiss Pavilion curator Charlotte Laubard, and the 2019 Salonnières Céline Eidenbenz and Victoria Mühlig, ending with a slow food buffet in the garden with a mural film projection by artists Chonja Lee, Jérémie Gindre, Vidya Gastaldon, accompanied by a dj set by Nevena Pulj.
Further information here.
ARTIST TALK ALERT
PAULINE BOUDRY / RENATE LORENZ
WITH IRENE REVELL AND LISA LONG
27 JULY 2019 | 6:00 PM | JSC BERLIN
On the occasion of their solo exhibition ONGOING EXPERIMENTS WITH STRANGENESS at JSC Berlin, artists Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz will be in conversation with curator Irene Revell and curator of the exhibition Lisa Long.
The conversation will focus on the various political threads running through their moving-image installations. The discussion will also examine Boudry / Lorenz’s use of staging both on- and off-screen, and how the exhibition works as a choreography for the viewer. In addition, the talk will feature their new work Moving Backward (2019), which is currently on view at the Swiss Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennial.
ONGOING EXPERIMENTS WITH STRANGENESS is Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz’s most comprehensive exhibition to date. Spanning the ground floor and first-floor cinema of the collection’s Berlin gallery, the show comprises four large-scale moving-image installations, stage elements, lights, and sculptural objects. The moving-image works featured in the exhibition are Telepathic Improvisation (2017), Silent (2016), I Want (2015), and To Valerie Solanas and Marilyn Monroe in Recognition of their Desperation (2013). All draw on musical scores, scripts, and speeches, adapted and interpreted by performers. Collectively, the artists and performers explore the works’ various political and sexual potentials, examining power relations among themselves and with the viewers.
ONGOING EXPERIMENTS WITH STRANGENESS is part of horizontal vertigo, a year-long program at the JULIA STOSCHEK COLLECTION in Dusseldorf and Berlin, curated by Lisa Long.
More information here: https://biennials.ch/home/ProjectDetail.aspx?ProjectId=39
And here: https://www.facebook.com/biennials.ch/posts/2349518861751449
Fantastic Negrito - "The Suit That Won't Come Off" (official video)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZjsDTwWXM0
Directed by Salonnière Céline Eidenbenz, the opening event will all be about "Choosing the rhythme" with artists inviting you to take part in: a slow walk with Hamish Fulton, a performance with Isabel Lewis, a yoga class with Vidya Gastaldon, slow food buffet, foot & hand massage and more!
The Salon Suisse offers a series of performances, talks and cultural events supplementing the exhibition at the Swiss Pavilion and will continue over 3 subsequent weekends in Septembre, October and November 2019.
Visit the website: http://movingbackwards.ch/
Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz are presenting their new commissioned work "Moving Backwards". Starting with the feeling of being pushed backwards by recent backlashes, Moving Backwards explores resistance practices, combining postmodern choreography and urban dance with guerrilla techniques and elements of queer underground culture. To the end that disadvantage might turn into a tool, Boudry/Lorenz start their experimental setting with a reference to the women of the Kurdish guerrillas: To deceive their enemies, they used to wear their shoes the wrong way round to walk from one place in the snowy mountains to the other. The traces showed that they were walking backwards, but actually they were walking forwards, or the other way around. The artists ask, if we can use the tactical ambivalence of these backwards-forwards movements as a means of coming together, re-organizing our desires, and finding ways of exercising freedoms.
ONGOING EXPERIMENTS WITH STRANGENESS at Julia Stoschek Collection Berlin
26 April – 28 July 2019
ONGOING EXPERIMENTS WITH STRANGENESS is Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz’s most comprehensive exhibition to date. Spanning the ground floor and first-floor cinema of the collection’s Berlin gallery, the show comprises four large-scale moving-image installations, stage elements, lights, and sculptural objects that, according to the artists, experiment with possibilities “between protest and resistance,” a reference to Ulrike Meinhof’s 1968 essay “Vom Protest zum Widerstand.”
Julia Stoschek Collection, Leipziger Straße 60, 10117 Berlin. www.jsc.art
The 5 dossiers of the 2nd round and the jury report
The 51 dossiers of the 1st round
The International Architecture Exhibition (Biennale Architettura) in Venice is one of the most important platforms for architecture and urban planning in the world. The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia for the second time conducted a competition to choose a team, which is to represent Switzerland at the 17th edition of the Biennale opening in May 2020. Out of the 51 applications submitted, seven teams were picked to present their project. Five of these projects were subsequently selected for a second round. At the unanimous recommendation of the Biennale jury appointed by Pro Helvetia, the assignment to create the exhibition at the Swiss Pavilion went to Mounir Ayoub, Vanessa Lacaille, Fabrice Aragno and Pierre Szczepski from Laboratoire d’architecture in Geneva.
The project
The winning team had opted for the politically topical theme of «borders», exploring it as a spatial phenomenon. The project also raises the question of how borders are perceived by people who actually live close to them. In what different ways do people experience borders? How do we relate to them? What spatial and physical dimensions does a border take on? In order to find some answers, the team actively involves inhabitants from the catchment area of the Swiss borders. Drawing from this research, the team aims to create an exhibition that speaks specifically of Swiss borders, but also raises for debate the subject of borders in general.
The project team
Mounir Ayoub, architect and journalist; Vanessa Lacaille, architect and garden designer; Fabrice Aragno, film director, producer and cutter; and Pierre Szczepski, painter, sculptor and model maker. All four work together at Laboratoire d'architecture in Geneva. The firm combines architectural and landscaping experiments with research and writing activities.
The jury
The jury was made up of Céline Guibat (jury president, architect EPFL, SIA, Zurich, Sion), Anna Hohler (architecture critic, UNIL, SIA, Lausanne), Verena Konrad (architecture curator, Vorarlberg, Austria), Lukas Meyer (architect ETH, FAS, Bellinzona) and Rob Wilson (architecture writer, The architects’ journal, London, UK).
In the piano nobile of the Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi where the Salon Suisse takes place, s l o w questions the rhythm of creation and its intrinsic slowness. In an art world governed by the scopic dimension, slowing down would make way for sensoriality and resistance to productivism. This year, the programme engages with slowness and art by considering topics such as acceleration, bedding, slothing, hypnosis, and more. It brings together a range of participants from diverse backgrounds. Through a participatory programme based on an interdisciplinary approach, s l o w fosters resonance, proximity and conviviality.
This year’s Salonnière is Céline Eidenbenz (Director Valais Art Museum) with co-Salonnières Victoria Mühling (curator) and Anja Radomirovic (architect), the Salon Suisse 2019 will open on Saturday 11 May at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, followed by 3 subsequent weekend at the Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi on 19 – 21 September; 17 – 19 October; and 21 – 23 November 2019.
Complete programme of Salon Suisse 2019 is coming soon!
Since the beginning of their collaboration in 2007, the artists have been reflecting on the conditions of visibility and existence of the other besides the categories that define our identities, through performances and installations.
More information: https://www.hesge.ch/head/en/event/2019/talking-heads-pauline-boudry-and-renate-lorenz-artists
Admission is free and the conversation will be in English.
More information: https://www.zhdk.ch/veranstaltung/38385
The Practice of Teaching? Students vs Professors
Saturday 10 November 2018 at 2PM
Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi, Dorsoduro 810 Venezia
‘The Practice of Teaching’ section at the 16th Venice Biennale gathers the works of architects who are also professors at the Academy of Architecture – USI located in Mendrisio. At times, the installations directly show the results of the teaching activity, while at others the reference is evocative, dialectical, or indirect. However, a recurring motif in all these interventions is the enrichment that the activity of teaching brings to architectural culture and its practice. Students discuss it in a public meeting with professors of the Accademia di architettura.
Participants include: Walter Angonese, Michele Arnaboldi, Valentin Bearth, Riccardo Blumer, Martin Boesch, Frédéric Bonnet, Mario Botta, Quintus Miller, João Nunes, Valerio Olgiati, Jonathan Sergison.
Open to all and the discussions will be held in Italian and English.
Thursday, 20 September 2018, 7pm
Never Stop Reading
Spiegelgasse 18, 8001 Zürich, Switzerland
In collaboration with Park Books, the curators of the Swiss Pavilion 2019, Alessandro Bosshard, Li Tavor, Matthew van der Ploeg, Ani Vihervaara, invite you to join the launch of "House Tour: Views of the Unfurnished Interior" this Thursday at the Never Stop Reading book store in Zurich.
During the event, the curators will present the image research that acted as the basis for the Svizzera 240 project in discussion with contributors Dr Emma Jones and Professor Martin Steinmann. Imogen Macpherson and Luca Bazelli will show a collection of documentary images of contemporary Swiss interiors. And last but not least, graphic designer Martin Stoecklin and the curators will discuss and contrast the development of the ‘house tour’ in its two dimensional (book) and three dimensional (pavilion) formats, leading to a discussion on how the Swiss Pavilion Svizzera 240 both responds to, and incites, critical debates within contemporary architecture.
All of which you can experience, in less than an hour, with a drink in your hand.
2 October 2018, 8–9:15 pm
Kunstmuseum Basel
Gegenwart, St. Alban-Rheinweg 60, 4052 Basel
Foyer, on the ground floor
The Swiss Pavilion 2019 curator Charlotte Laubard will participate in "Care or cure? Curatorial ethics today", one of the panel discussions in the «Schnittmengen» series, organised by the University of Basel at Kunstmuseum Basel.
The recent phenomenon of ever more frequent and ubiquitous largescale exhibition formats –often dubbed with the critical term „biennalization“– both has the potential of shifting the focus of the (predominantly western) art world to other, less visible art scenes, artists and locations, but has also been criticized as a new form of colonial gesture and as catering to purely economic motives.
Given these debates, how can one define the scope of action of the individual actors–artists, curators, critics, visitors–within this context? What curatorial or artistic forms can we imagine that are neither paralyzed by the current state of global exhibition making, nor ostentatiously embrace the rhetorics of social change through curatorial practice? What curatorial approaches does and should global exhibition making engender? Is bigger always better? And how can the personal, aesthetic and political interest be developed into a certain „curatorial ethics“(Maura Reilly)?
These questions will be discussed by Charlotte Laubard (curator of the Swiss Pavilion, commissioned by Pro Helvetia, at the Venice Biennial 2019) and Nora Sternfeld (documenta-Professor Kunsthochschule Kassel).
The series of eikones-talks „Schnittmengen“ is conceived and moderated by Katharina Brandl and Claire Hoffmann. The talk will be held in English.
25 September 2018, 8–10 pm
Centre culturel suisse
2-38 rue des Francs-Bourgeois / F-75003 Paris
Reservation: http://ccsparis.com/billetterie
On 25 September 2018, Alessandro Bosshard and Li Tavor, two of the architects behind "Svizzera 240: House Tour", will present the team's research that led to the Golden Lion Award winning project at this year's Swiss Pavilion at the 16th La Biennale di Venezia.