Alexandre Bianchini, Detroit on Circle, digital transfer of Super 8 films, 12’24’’, music, 1996
Immersed in an environment that favours abstract painting, influenced by the Swiss tradition, concrete art and the 1960s myth of American abstraction, Alexandre Bianchini sought out other influences within the conceptual movement of the 1960s and 70s, with Andy Warhol and pop art. With the same desire to identify more immediate and more critical gestures, he has revisited lighter, more mobile and even obsolete mediums, such as Super 8 film, artists’ books and print-outs.
For the screening program, Videos: new and revisited, the new CEC website and its “Recent videos” and “Archives” components, we have chosen the edition of a series of Super 8 films by Alexandre Bianchini, Detroit on Circle, dating from 1996, from the CEC collection. Each of these short, 3-minute films features a soundtrack of techno music excerpts, direct references to artists from the Detroit music scene, with Robert Hood and Jeff Mills, or to the artist’s immediate environment and the techno scene, with DJ Sid and Hubert Mean.
Panning in and out to the rhythm of the sound excerpts, Bianchini films a piece of cardboard taken from a box of “crispy sesame bread” by the Swiss brand Roland, which is fixed vertically in the centre of a vinyl record playing at 33 rpm. This little carousel alternately presents this advert for sesame bread and the image glued to the back of the cardboard, sometimes of a Spartan room, sometimes of a jungle path, a souvenir of the artist’s visit to Colombia. The video of this endless carousel, caught in a back-and-forth movement, with its very rhythmic, repetitive and catchy techno sounds, provokes a hypnotic and old-fashioned effect, making spectators oscillate between these Swiss crackers and the sensations of a trip to Colombia.
Alexandre Bianchini (1966, Geneva) lives and works in Geneva. His work has been presented in various solo exhibitions, such as Child of Rage at Locus solus, Prilly (2022); Sans tain sans titre au Halle nord, Geneva (2018). He has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions: Acquisitions 2021 at the Fonds d’art contemporain de la Ville de Genève, Geneva (2022); Etat des lieux at the Maison Gaudard, Lausanne (2022).
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
