Denis Savary, Blood on the Dining-Room Floor, video, sound, 8’53”, loop, 2024
Blood on the Dining-Room Floor borrows its title to Gertrude Stein’s first detective novel, written after the successful Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. As she lived recluse with her partner, Alice, in the French village of Bilignin, Stein started writing this novel, inspired by the various events and intrigues of the small hamlet daily life. Her country house then becomes a location from which Stein could observe this microcosm filled with underlying violence. With this video, Savary looks back to a specific period in his work, in the beginning of the 2000s, when he was producing videos mostly from or within the immediate environment of his family home in Vaud. Realized in miniDV, a bygone production mean, these videos represent an era where the house worked as a studio and as a vantage point overlooking the world. Curiously, amongst the miniature houses of the Villa series, the one chosen for Blood on the Dining-Room Floor is the one which looks the most similar to the artist’s old house.
The video is accompanied by an eponym sound piece, a work commissioned to the artists composers Maria Esteves and Mathilde Hansen. The sound and the image are merged and seem to be out of sync, as a dance off the beat. Progressively, the house’s motion slows down, and reveals the complexity of a mutli-track House sound from which emerges a voice that chants extract from Gertrude Stein’s novel. The video dissimulates a pun, between the musical genre of House music and the main subject of the film, the artist’s childhood house. Set in a rotating movement, the miniature house from the Blood on the Dining-Room Floor video reminds of dance-floor disco balls projecting rays of colored light.
Denis Savary (1981) lives and works in Geneva. His work has been shown in a number of solo exhibitions, such as : Josy’s Club, with Pierre-Olivier Arnaud, Synagogue de Delme, Delme (2023) ; Octogone, avec Chloé Delarue, Mayday, Basel (2023) ; Flower of Fog, GNYP Gallery, Berlin (2022) ; Ithaca, Galerie Maria Bernheim, Zurich (2021) ; Ambarabà Cicci Cocco, with Alfredo Aceto, Stiftung Kunsthalle Sankt Gallen, Saint Gall (2021) ; Ventimiglia, Galerie Maria Bernheim, London (2021); Phantom, Lemme, Sion (2021). His many recent group exhibitions include : Temps de Mars, Musée des Beaux-Arts, La Chaux-de-Fonds (2024) ; The Big Chill, Galerie Maria Bernheim, London (2023) ; Mirage, MCBA, Lausanne (2023) ; Deep Deep Down, MUDAM Luxembourg, Luxembourg (2023) ; The Puppet Show, Centre d’art contemporain, Geneva (2022) ; Inventaire, Mamco, Geneva (2021) ; Ballard in Albisola, Casa Jorn House, Albisola (2021) ; La Suite – Regards sur les artistes des collections des Frac, Institut d’art contemporain, Villeurbanne (2021) ; Body Double, Galerie Maria Bernheim, London (2021). In 2024, Denis Savary’s work will be the subject of several solo and group exhibitions: Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, Milan ; Denis Savary, Galerie Maria Bernheim, London ; Roma, Roma, Roma, Rolex Learning Center, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne. In 2025, he will be exhibited at KBCB Kunsthaus Biel Centre d’art, Biel.
This project is supported by Ernst und Olga Gubler-Hablützel Foundation, Leenaards Foundation and the Office fédérale de la culture, de la République et canton de Genève.
Caroline Schattling Villeval, When a frog meets a dog, animation video, loop, 5′, 2024
At the bottom of an almost dry lake, frogs are gathered around a puddle. Their movements, slowed down and almost imperceptible, bring life to this deserted landscape. A dog appears. Imposing, his body extends beyond the frame. His walk sets off a panoramic, moving shot.
Thus begins Caroline Schattling Villeval’s video When a frog meets a dog, produced for her exhibition Carences et toute-puissance1. This new piece functions as a continuation of her installation good boy (Hasch, Marseille, 2023) which revolved around the fictional text Vie/Chienne, that explores the question of domination arising from a non-consensual interaction between a person and a dog with a wandering tongue2. Once again, the animal is one of the main protagonists of Caroline Schattling Villeval’s video When a frog meets a dog, this time alongside a group of frogs.
With his massive, slender body and golden fur, the dog, animated by Caroline Schattling Villeval, moves forward in a menacing manner. He appears to be indifferent to everything, including the amphibians which have come together to stop his march. Piled up in the shape of a column, they form a mass in front of this manifestation of almighty power. The counter-power embodied in the group’s strength is swept away, pushed aside by a paw. It’s not strong enough. A crushing failure even: it’s raining frogs. They splash into the exhibition space, contaminating the room. The almighty power triumphs over the collective strength. End of the story. However, in Caroline Schattling Villeval’s work, the power dynamics also manifest themselves in an underlying manner through the technical process. A dog, frogs, a 3D-modelled bestiary bought online like one would adopt a pet: an act of domination. Then comes the computer, far from functioning autonomously as the artist manipulates her virtual puppets through an animation software. Finally, the dog, never fully visible, dominates the frogs as well as the space. The dog, the first animal species domesticated by Man – its « best friend » –, that Caroline Schattling Villeval has trained to perform its own dance. The image is replayed in a loop, but who’s calling the shots? When a frog meets a dog is a canvas onto which power dynamics are superimposed in infinite layers.
1. In parallel with her exhibition at the Centre d’édition contemporaine, Caroline Schattling Villeval presents StéréoMimicryat the Salle Crosnier, Palais de l’Athénée, from January 12 to February 10, 2024. 2. Vie/Chienne was written by Caroline Schattling Villeval in 2023 for [SWISS] Weird & Magic #1, forthcoming publication by éditions Clinamen.
Born in 1995 in Zürich, Caroline Schattling Villeval lives and works in Geneva. Her work has been exhibited in various venues in Switzerland and abroad in solo shows such as : StéréoMimicry, Salle Crosnier, Geneva (12.01–10.02.2024) ; good boy, Hasch, Marseille (2023) ; No firing, with Paul Paillet, Espace 3353, Carouge (2021) ; Chiara Chiara Chiara, Zabriskie Point, Geneva (2020) ; Being fucked, Lokal-int, Biel (2020). She has also taken part in several group exhibitions, including: Basel Social Club with Joyfully waiting, Basel (2023) ; MINIMIRACLES, Sonnenstube, Lugano (2023) ; Bourses déliées – Arts Visuels, Halle Nord, Geneva (2022); Prix Kiefer Hablitzel, Art Basel, Basel (2022) Esprit d’Escalier, with Paul Paillet, Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva (2022) ; Plaisirs Minuit, Forde as part of the Fesse-tival, Geneva (2022) ; Peeping through the looking glass, Set Space, London (2021) ; Fotoromanza, Le Commun, Geneva (2021) ; Silicon Malley, Prilly (2020) ; Weaving home, Limbo Space, Geneva (2020).
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
A presentation of two “Before publications” was organized at the CEC on Thursday, May 25, 2023, in collaboration with Joyfully Waiting, a sound project by Nathalie Rebholz. It brought together Laurence Bonvin (artist, photographer, and filmmaker, born 1967 in Sierre), whose publication, شالي (shali). Before publication 7, was edited in 2022, and Yann Chateigné Tytelman (freelance writer and curator, born 1977 in Brussels) whose publication, Blackout. Before publication 10, was launching on the event. The event created space for discussion about the various themes addressed by the two speakers, in conversation with Véronique Bacchetta. Both talked about the development of his or her “Before publication”, as well as her artistic practice, in the case of Laurence Bonvin, and his curatorial practice, in the case of Yann Chateigné Tytelman.
An interlude by RM, Dirty dirty desire, 2023, track by Pony Pride, released on activeRat, followed the presentation of the two publications. The evening concluded with a listening session of Joyfully Waiting.
Starting in 2019, the CEC launches into the “Before publication” collection. It gathers several authors’ texts or artists’ inserts, which appear regularly and until the final edition of L’Effet papillon, 2008-2024, the second volume of the Centre d’édition contemporaine’s retrospective catalog, L’Effet papillon, 1989-2007 (published in 2008).
Laurence Bonvin, شالي. Before publication 7, 36 pages, ed. of the CEC, 2022
The set of photographs Shali (house in Siwi language) was made in February 2021 – Shali, digital photographs (color originals), inkjet print on Hahnmühle paper, 74.7 x 58 cm, 2021. It’s related to the fortress of the same name, located in the center of the Siwa oasis in Egypt. The construction technique, kershef, is a mixture of clay, salt, and stones. It is exemplary of Berber vernacular architecture and offers a natural protection against the heat of the desert. Severely eroded by time and the torrential rains of 1926, the fortress of Shali has been restored by the Egyptian government who wants to make Siwa an eco-tourism center.
Born in 1967 in Sierre, Laurence Bonvin is a Swiss photographer and film director. She lives between Switzerland and the city of Lisbon. Marked by the documentary, her approach has been focused for many years on landscape, architecture, and the phenomena of transformation of urban and natural environments. Through her gaze, the artist reveals the social, poetic and political dimensions of intermediate places such as borders, wastelands, pre-urban and peri-urban areas, and questions their identities. Her photographic work has been presented in solo exhibitions including: Blackrock, Dak’Art Biennale, Dakar (2022); Earth Beats, Kunsthaus Zürich (2021); See Pieces, Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation, Berlin (2021); Les lois de l’improbabilité, Centre de la photographie, Geneva (2020); Something Else 2, Biennale off, Darb 1789, Cairo (2018); Flow of Forms, Museum of Ethnology, Hamburg (2018). She also participates in the collective exhibition, La montagne en perspective, in the Museum of Art and History, Geneva (2022-23). Laurence Bonvin has directed several short films presented in exhibitions as well as selected by international festivals such as Ghost Fair Trade (2022). She has benefited from a Pro Helvetia Cairo workshop between 2020 and 2021.
Yann Chateigné Tytelman, Blackout. Before publication 10, 44 pages, ed. of the CEC, 2023
“It all started with a letter to my father. It had been about ten years since his death, and I suddenly felt like writing to him about the silence, his silence, the silence between us. It started in 2020, as a necessity. The silence, then, was striking. It resonated with other erased voices, other voids, other emotions. I thought I would not be able to stop. Neither diary, nor essay, nor short story, Blackout is a weaving, a braid made of these lines of silence, and tells, in fragments, the story of a dispossession, of an entry into darkness.”
(Yann Chateigné Tytelman, Blackout. Before publication 10, extract from the colophon)
Yann Chateigné Tytelman is an author and curator living in Brussels. He was an artistic advisor at MORPHO, Antwerp; curator at KANAL – Centre Pompidou, Brussels (2019–2021); head of the Visual Arts Department at HEAD – Geneva (2009-2017) and of the programming at CAPC Museum of contemporary art in Bordeaux (2007–2009). He recently organized Four Sisters (Jewish Museum of Belgium, Brussels, 2023), A Glittering Ruin Sucked Upwards (HISK, Brussels, 2022), Gordon Matta-Clark: Material Thinking (Canadian Center for Architecture, Montreal and Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, 2019-2021) and By repetition, you start noticing details in the landscape (Le Commun, Geneva, 2019). He has contributed to Conceptual Fine Arts, Mousse and Spike and co-edited Almanac Ecart. A collective archive, 1969-2019 (HEAD-Geneva/ art&fiction, 2019).
This project is sponsored by the City of Geneva, and by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
Born in Los Angeles in 1970, Liz Craft belongs to a generation of artists strongly inspired by the libertarian mindset of the West Coast of the United States and heir of the Flower Power movement of the 1970s and that of sexual activism of the 1980s. In the interview given on the occasion of her exhibition, Ms America, at the CEC, from November 5th, 2022, to February 3rd, 2023, Craft looks back on her life and artist journey with her friend and Geneva gallery owner Paul-Aymar Mourgue d’Algue. Craft discusses in particular the importance and influence on her work of the community of artists and synergies created around projects like Paradise Garage, a small gallery founded with Pentti Monkkonen in the garage of their house in Venice, California. Or the Paramount Ranch art fair that she and Monkkonen set up in 2014 with gallery owners Alex Freedman and Robbie Fitzpatrick, and which established strong connections between Los Angeles and the European art scenes. She also talks about the evolution that took place in her practice which went from a monumental to an artisanal production that is overall freer, such as the Pac-Women, the puppet figures presented at her exhibition at the CEC. Liz Craft & Paul-Aymar Mourgue d’Algue. Conversation is the second video in a series of filmed discussions between artists and figures from the art world involved in the CEC’s programming.
Liz Craft (1970, Los Angeles) lives and works in Berlin. Her exhibitions have included those at the Real Fine Arts Gallery, New York, Truth and Consequences, Geneva, Jenny’s, Los Angeles, and at the Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt between 2015 and 2022. Her work has been presented in various solo exhibitions, such as: Me Princess, Kunsthaus Centre d’art Pasquart, Biel (2023); Ms. America, Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva (2022); Cavern, Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt (2022); Do You Love Me Now ? Kunsthalle und Kunstmuseum, Bremerhaven (2022); Escape From New York, Baby Company, New York (2019); QUERELA, Galeria Zé dos Bois, Lisbon (2019); Watching You Watching Me, Jenny’s Gallery, London (2018). She has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions: Kreislaufprobleme at Croy Nielsen, Vienna (2019), Tranted Loveat Confort Moderne, Poitiers (2018); Sueurs Chaudes at South Way Studio, Marseille (2017); Medusa. Bijoux et tabous at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la ville de Paris, Paris (2017).
Paul-Aymar Mourgue d’Algue (Geneva, 1974) lives and works in New York. He is an independant curator and an art critic.
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
Jonathan Monk proceeds by method, by series. He creates scores that, once established, are carried through, this second part not being necessarily the most important step. These scores might be considered as a broader form of editing and some of its parameters: image reproduction rights, copyright, artistic property. Jonathan Monk is the perfect candidate for edition, because for him original and copy most importantly represent endless and free possibilities of crossings, of clouding issues and of conceptualization, all this above their commercial value. Monk revisits some artistic standards often in the form of multiples, like an actor who would re-enact his classics, practice his scales. He maintains an ironic distance to art – most often to conceptual art – but also takes a similar amused and critical look at society and its excesses. Monk stages and experiences the proliferation of signs, might they be artistic or consumerist, as a daily invasion of our living and mental space. He recomposes and reorganizes these signs in order to reveal all their absurdity with a discrepancy that is more often affective and autobiographical than it seems.
For his solo show, Egg, at the CEC, from February 21 to April 27, 2013, Jonathan Monk has imagined Soft Boiled Eggs, an edition of a series of unique Super 8 films. The making of these films is based on the duration of a Super 8 film cartridge and on the time, it takes to cook an egg. An edition with copies produced every two and a half minutes, a mechanical possibility of making an edition. In a same pan, Monk adds an egg every two and a half minutes: in the first film, we see only one egg, in the second two eggs, etc., until ten eggs in the tenth film. If this statement might seem simple and old-fashioned, it probably suggests an innocent imitation of historical and more conceptual eggs or series of eggs; we think of Manzoni, Broodthaers, Kippenberger… and also underlines the idea of egg as an object, the perfect multiple. For Jonathan Monk, the idea appears unavoidable: …”I like boiled eggs and I couldn’t escape from them! – for me they represented the beginning of something… in this case the egg and not the chicken…”
The finalised edition consists of a Super 8 film roll, one DVD transfer and a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist. It is housed in a black box, carefully hand painted with ten coloured eggs. An Easter edition, if you like.
Johnathan Monk, Soft Boiled Eggs, Soft Boiled Egg 1/10 + Soft Boiled Eggs 9/10 + Soft Boiled Eggs 2/10 + Soft Boiled Eggs 8/10 + Soft Boiled Eggs 3/10 + Soft Boiled Eggs 7/10 + Soft Boiled Eggs 4/10 + Soft Boiled Egsg 6/10 + Soft Boiled Eggs 5/10 + Soft Boiled Eggs 10/10, 10 unique films, Super 8 and DVD, colours, duration of the films = cooking time of one egg (approx. 2 min. 45), of 2 eggs, of 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 eggs, colors, 2023
Johnathan Monk Soft Boiled Eggs Soft Boiled Egg 1/10, …, Soft Boiled Eggs 10/10, 10 unique films, Super 8 and DVD, colours, duration of the films = cooking time of one egg (approx. 2 min. 45), of 2 eggs, of 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 eggs, black cardboard box with a hand – painted pattern by Jonathan Monk on its cover, spray, colours, containing the Super 8 film and a DVD – transfer, as well as a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist, edition of 10, numbered from 1 to 10, dated, edition of the Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva, 2013.
Jonathan Monk was born in Leicester in 1969 and lives and works in Berlin. His most recent solo exhibitions were held in 2023 at Cristina Guerra, Lisbon, Galerie Dvir, Paris, König2 project space, Vienna; in 2022 at Casey Kaplan Gallery, New York, Massimo de Carlo, Paris, and Meyer Riegger, Karlsruhe. In 2023, he took part in several group shows, including Galerie Nicolai Wallner, Copenhagen, Mudac, Lausanne, Fondation Morra Greco, Naples; in 2022, Collection Boros, Berlin, MAH, Geneva, Design Museum Holon, Israel, and MAAT, Lisbon.
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
Paul Paillet, Surprise/Innocence, animation video, 7′24′′, music, 2023
Paul Paillet’s work composes the fragmented narrative of an intimate history immersed in a collective history, combining references to both pop culture and the underground culture of the 1990s-2000s.
Surprise/Innocence by Paul Paillet is an animation video-clip based on a series of drawings. Before proceeding to a personal technique of collage, Paillet marouflages his paper in a mould, giving it a slight embossed effect. The glue he uses is tinted with natural pigments. As it dries, the paper detaches itself from the mould, impregnated with colours which are often bright and zingy. This process reveals a final drawing with an aqueous appearance on the paper surface.
Paul Paillet used this same methode to create the scenery of Surprise/Innocence, a succession of hills against backdrop of a sunset and more or less enigmatic architectures, from which a character suddenly emerges, crudely sticking out his tongue, in a dance which is both hypnotic and clumsy. Reminiscent of vertical smartphone screens, the animation loops to a Hardtek soundtrack coupled with the voices of the K-pop group BTS. They are actually reading excerpts from Hermann Hesse’s novel Demian. Die Geschichte einer Jugend (1919), an ironic cross between the alternative spirit of the 1960s and the South Korean interplanetary boy band.
Paul Paillet (1986, Dijon) lives and works in Geneva. His work has been presented in various solo exhibitions, including Fantasy at the Salle Crosnier, Geneva (2022); Fascination for fire at the Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva (2020). He has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions: Sublime Rage at French Place, London (2022) ; Atmosphères at la Pace Gallery, New York (2021).
BTS, WINGS, Shortfilm #1, Begin
The realms of day and night, two different worlds coming from two opposite poles, mingle during this time.
BTS, WINGS, Short Film #2 LIE, 2016
My parents’ house made a realm. This realm was familiar to me in almost every way, mother and father, love and strictness, model behaviour and school.
BTS, WINGS, Short Film #3 STIGMA, 2016
It was the first fissure in the columns that had upheld my childhood which every individual must destroy before he can become himself. Such fissures and brands grow together again, heal, and are forgotten, but in the most secret recesses they continue to live and bleed.
BTS, WINGS, Short Film #4 FIRST LOVE, 2016
There are enormous ways which god can make us lonely and lead us back to ourself. This was the way he sealed with me at that time.
BTS, WINGS, Short Film #5 REFLECTION, 2016
The other realm, however, overlapping half our house was completely different. A loud mixture of horrendous, intriguing, frightful, mysterious things, including slaughterhouses and prisons, drunkards, scratching fishwives, calving cows, horses sinking to their death, tales of robberies, murder and suicide.
My sin was not specifically this or that, but consisted of having shaking hands with the devil. The devil held me in his clutches, the enemy was behind me.
BTS, WINGS, Short Film #7 AWAKE, 2016
The bird fights its way out of the egg. The egg is the world. Who had been born must first destroy a world. The bird flies to God. That God’s name is Abraxas.
BTS, WINGS, “Blood, Sweat & Tears”, 2016
He too was a tempter. He too was a link to the second, the evil world with which I no longer wanted to have anything to do.
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
From film to performance, by way of painting, sculpture and installation, Mai-Thu Perret’s multifaceted practice combines modernism, the Arts and Crafts movement and Oriental spiritualities. Her works address various themes ranging from gender issues and radical feminist policies to humans (bodies, sexuality, medical issues), the intimate space (furniture, common objects, decors) and childhood (drawings, games). Her interest in certain craft techniques links Mai-Thu Perret to Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, whose work very freely expresses questions related to bodies, sexuality and gender. In an often autobiographical narrative, the artist expresses his commitment to a more tolerant and less conventional society.
Conversation is an interview between Mai-Thu Perret and Matthew Lutz-Kinoy, the first in a series of filmed discussions which the CEC will produce with artists and other figures from the art world involved in its programming. This interview is an opportunity to look back at the Scrolls in the Wind edition, which Matthew Lutz-Kinoy produced for the Centre in 2018, and the recent exhibition and edition My sister’s hand in mine, which Mai-Thu Perret produced for the Centre in 2022. The interview reveals the complicity between these two artists with unique backgrounds and their shared interest in crafts.
Mai-Thu Perret (1976, Geneva) lives and works in Geneva. Her work has been presented in various solo exhibitions, including Mother Sky at David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); Real Estate and Untitled at Instituto Svizzero, Rome (2021 and 2022); My sister’s hand in mine at Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva (2021). She has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions: Les Flammes at Musée d’art moderne de Paris, Paris (2021); Same things make us laugh, make us cry at Body Archive Project, Zurich (2021).
Matthew Lutz-Kinoy (1984, New York) lives and works between Los Angeles and Paris. His projects have been exhibited in various solo exhibitions such as: Plate is Bed, Plate is Sun, Plate is Circle, Plate is Cycle at Galerie Kamel Mennour, Paris, France (2022); Soap Bubbles at Art Basel Parcours, Basel (2022). He recently took part in the following group exhibitions: River of Rebirth at Z33, Hasselt (2023); Le salon de musique at Kamel Mennour, Paris (2022).
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
Paul Viaccoz,Murs chamaniques. Commentaires, video, 5’41’’, sound, French, 2022
In a back-and-forth between magic and the limits of science, between illusion and reality, Paul Viaccoz’ drawings, murals and object assemblies combine observations, threats and predictions, presenting a simultaneously surreal and horrified vision of the violence and atrocity of the news and its deadly conflagrations: wars, diseases, pandemics.
Recorded in January 2022 in Paul Viaccoz’ studio in Courroux, Murs chamaniques. Commentaires is a kind of extension of the ESPRIT ES-TU LÀ ? exhibition, which took place a few months before at the CEC. In the voice-over, he recounts his spiritual journey to encounter illness and death. The film also presents a visual journey, a tracking shot along a wall of his studio which encompasses the objects, souvenirs and personal mystical experiences that constitute the Murs chamaniques, which the artist has been continuously reconstructing in situ for the past few years. Day after day, he assembles objects taken from nature or from everyday life, souvenirs, fetishes, talismans, which are then juxtaposed or recombined with photographs, drawings, video screenshots, postcards, masks, musical instruments, skulls and crossbones, sabres, dried flowers, feathers, jewellery and pieces of embroidery. This collection of objects, images and texts forms a mural puzzle, reconstructed according to the artist’s moods, reflections and history.
Paul Viaccoz (1953, Saint-Julien-en-Genevois) lives and works in the canton of Jura. His work has been presented in various solo exhibitions, including ESPRIT ES-TU LÀ ? at the Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva (2021); La censure des messages at Musée Jurassien des Arts, Moutier (2018). He has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions: Résonnances (2021) and Mystères et frissons (2022), both at Musée Jurassien des Arts, Moutier; Sans titre, entre autres, David Mamie, Xavier Robel and Nicola Todeschini, a look at the FMAC’s collection of drawings at Le Commun, Bâtiment d’art contemporain, Geneva (2019).
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
Guillaume Dénervaud’s practice includes drawing, printing, sculpture, and installation, with a focus on forms taken from science fiction, films, comics, and literature. He is also inspired by reality, combining references to decorative and utilitarian objects, reconnecting with materials, techniques and forms often derived from crafts, design or more simply from popular culture and everyday life. He mixes contemporary modes of production with forgotten or rediscovered traditional practices. Guillaume Dénervaud’s graphic work, carefully executed by hand, recalls the precision and rigour of industrial and mechanical technical drawings. But on closer inspection, the figurative graphic language of the latter gives way to a poetic abstraction composed of infinite combinations of cellular, round, or serpentine forms, interconnected by the silky textures of digital renderings.
AGLOROMONES is Guillaume Dénervaud’s first video work. It presents a selection of images shot outdoors, which embody the raw material of the anthropogenic research and concerns which underpin the artist’s entire body of work. Filmed on the route that separates Guillaume Dénervaud’s former residence in the 18th arrondissement of Paris and his studio in Saint-Denis, the images document the artist’s daily observations in this rapidly transforming part of the city. AGLOROMONES presents a series of scenes filmed between abstraction and reality, a crossing of interstitial and peripheral spaces, transit areas between the city and the countryside.
Guillaume Dénervaud (1987, Fribourg) lives and works in Paris. His work has been presented in a variety of solo exhibitions, including Synthetic Splinter at the Bel Ami Gallery, Los Angeles (2023), Surv’Eye at the Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva (2021), STRATA at La Cristallerie, Saint-Louis (2020). He has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions : La main-pleur at the Kunsthalle Friart, Fribourg (2022), Des corps, des écritures at the Musée d’art Moderne de la Ville de Paris (2022), Les formes du transfert at the Magasins Généraux, Paris (2022).
The project Videos: new and revisited is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
Guillaume Dénervaud’s video AGLOROMONES is sponsored by the Fonds cantonal d’art contemporain of the Canton of Geneva.
Liz Craft, Brave new world, March 2020, video, 17’’, 2020
Liz Craft belongs to a generation of artists who have been strongly inspired by the kitsch and libertarian imagination of the West Coast of the United States. Her universe oscillates between the very light, informal spirit of 1970s Flower Power and the militant sexuality of the 1980s. Craft’s interest in utilitarian and current materials leads her to combine them in sculptures, often puppets or dolls, cobbled-together but very expressive figures which blur the boundaries between arts and crafts, but also between installation and the stage, between fiction and personal narrative.
For the first part of the Videos: new and revisited project, we present a short film by Liz Craft, Brave new world, March 2020, video, 17’, 2020, which was recorded on an iPhone in the Joshua Tree National Park in south-eastern California during the March 2020 lockdown. This endless tracking shot travels through the desert, devoid of any tourists or living souls, giving an impression of freedom and movement, vertiginous in the context of this strangely static and locked-down moment. This film was part of a commission extended to several artists during the lockdown and the closure of the CEC, including Guillaume Dénervaud, Giulia Essyad, Paul Paillet, Mai-Thu Perret and RM. This series of short films or images was broadcast on the CEC’s Instagram page in a mini-series called “MEANWHILE,” until the CEC was able to reopen in May 2020.
Liz Craft (1970, Los Angeles) lives and works in Berlin. Her work has been presented in various solo exhibitions, such as Ms. America at the Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva (2022); Cavern at the Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt (2022); Do You Love Me Now? at the Kunsthalle und Kunstmuseum, Bremerhaven (2022). She has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions: Kreislaufprobleme at Croy Nielsen, Vienna (2019), Tainted Love at Confort Moderne, Poitiers (2018); Sueurs Chaudes at South Way Studio, Marseille (2017).
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
Jeffrey Vallance, The Gospel According to Jeffrey, video of the performance at the chapel of Saint-Léger, Geneva, 82’, sound, English, 2012
Jeffrey Vallance (born in 1955, lives and works in Reseda/Los Angeles) is a Californian artist steeped in the counterculture who revisits religious rituals, folklore, and fetishist practices. Alternately an ambassador, an anthropologist, an explorer, a writer, a professor, and an investigator of paranormal phenomena, Vallance is a compulsive collector whose stock-in-trade is informed by personal and collective mythologies. Influenced by his forebear Emil Knudsen (1872–1956), a famous Norwegian medium, he strongly believes in the role of inspiration in his work, often perceived as a conversation with the afterlife. He therefore turns his everyday life into an enchanted world, open to acts of faith, mysteries, and revelations. Raised within the strict Lutheran tradition and versed in a form of contemporary art which borders on heresy, Vallance resolves this apparent contradiction by means of his dyslexic nature which enables him to let contradictory beliefs coexist in harmony. Upon visiting the International Museum of Reformation —during his first stay in Geneva on the invitation of the Centre d’édition contemporaine— the artist was intrigued by the figure of John Calvin, who urged all good Christians to spread the word of God. From five centuries’ distance, he took the message seriously by publishing nothing less than his own Bible – The Vallance Bible. This bold gesture was also marked by a paradox: a spiritual and artistic accomplishment, and a blasphemous, or at least ironic act. Jeffrey Vallance’s exhibition at the Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva, is his first solo show in Switzerland. On this occasion, he will present his “personalised” Bible in English, The Vallance Bible (co-edited by Grand Central Press, Santa Ana and the Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva, 2011), as well as new drawings and editions, kinds of religious trinkets inspired by religious merchandising. (Eveline Notter, from the press release of the exhibition, Jeffrey Vallance, The Vallance Bible).
For the Videos: new and revisited project and its “Archives” component, we will be presenting the film that was made during Jeffrey Vallance’s performance, The Gospel According to Jeffrey, on March 29th, 2012, for the opening of his solo exhibition, The Vallance Bible, which was held at the CEC from March 30th to May 5th, 2012. The exhibition and performance were organised by the curator, Eveline Notter, Geneva. This event took place in the Chapel of Saint-Léger, a neighbour of the CEC, which was located on the same street at the time. This performance was more like a ceremony, more ecumenical than properly religious. Several experts, academics, curators and religious figures, representatives of Catholicism, Protestantism and Buddhism, such as Jérôme Ducor (former curator of the Department of Asia of the Museum of Ethnography of Geneva, Buddhist bhikkhu, Geneva), Xavier Gravend-Tirole (theologian and researcher, former assistant at the University of Lausanne and at the Institute of Religions, Cultures, Modernity of Lausanne, IRCM), Pastor William McComish (former Dean of St-Pierre Cathedral, Geneva), Gabriel de Montmollin (former Director of Labor and Fides Editions, current Director of the International Reform Museum, Geneva) and Humberto Salvagnin (organist at the Parish of St-Thérèse, Geneva) gathered for a round-table discussion. Following the reading of the chapter, The Gospel According to Jeffrey, by the “humanist celebrant” Julien Abegglen Verazzi, taken from the book co-edited by Grand Central Press, Santa Ana and the CEC, each speaker reacted to Vallance’s very personal gospel and bible. The performance ended with a discussion with the audience, and Martin Luther’s canticle, Ein fest Brug ist unser Gott.
Jeffrey Vallance (1955, Torrance) lives and works in Los Angeles. His work has been presented in various solo exhibitions, such as A Voyage to Extremes at the Ampersand cooperative structure, Lisbon (2023); Relics: Blinky and Bloody Blanket at the International Cryptozoology Museum, Portland (2022). He has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions: Lächerlich Deins! at the Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn (2022); Urban Explorer at Knoxville Community Media, Knoxville (2022).
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
Gerard Byrne, For example ; a sketch of Five Elevations, 1971-72, video, 9′ 37”, loop, mute, 2011
For his exhibition at the Centre d’édition contemporaine in 2011 (05.04 – 07.16.2011), Gerard Byrne has presented a film referring to a 1971-72 piece by Richard Serra he had had access to in the parc of a private collection near London: Five Elevations. This film follows a series of researches on abstraction and minimalism, and among others a previous film installation, A thing is a hole in a thing it is not (videos, 2010). It has been produced and presented first at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, then at The Renaissance Society, Chicago, at Lismore Castle Arts, County Waterford, Ireland, and at the 2010 Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art. This movieis made up of several short films showing works from the collection of the Van Abbemuseum, which somehow represent the quintessence of American minimalism: with paintings and sculptures by Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Robert Morris or Frank Stella. Reinstalled in the Eindhoven halls by Gerard Byrne, the works replay their presence in the museum. The camera records the works as well as the context: museum workers, photographs, cleaners, attendants and visitors. The shots result from large scanning or a back-and-forth between the surrounding space, the apparently insignificant details and the art works themselves, objectified as well. The shift in point of view operated by Gerard Byrne is recontextualized in the field of minimalism by Penelope Curtis in her essay A local address, in Tuxedo Junction (1960), about A thing is a hole in a thing it is not:
“This means that we are left with the possibility of thinking of Minimalism’s project as both romantic and classical; as a work of the imagination as well as of manufacturing; an idea as well as an object ; a dream as well as a result. It is also made clear, however, that Minimalism is not just about us, and our experience, but also about how other experiences are mediated for us, whether in text, voice or imagery.“1 Besides, the epigraph introducing the catalogue reads: “Assembled and edited by Gerard Byrne upon the achievements of the Minimalists and their critics.”2
In For example; a sketch of Five Elevations, 1971-72, the camera moves around Five Elevations. Through shots using a variety of standards of cinematic grammar, creating a subjective image of this complex sculpture. In the background, and without being the subject of the movie, the camera records simultaneously and partly a fashion shoot taken place here by coincidence. Despite this double setting, the work of Richard Serra remains the principal character of this fiction, although the confrontation with the fashion shoot transforms Five Elevations in a kind of “Stonehenge“, provoking a back-clash between these two temporal dimensions: eternity vs the ephemeral.
As in his previous works, Gerard Byrne puts the question of the historical or the artistic transmission of a well-known reality, media-covered, phenomenological, or more: iconic. He puts this reality to the proof of its recording or re-recording (film, photography), of its diffusion and its reception:
“The idea was to construct for each work a kind of self-awareness of being viewed. I am interested in how the camera tries to construct and elaborate those viewpoints in a filmic sense. I recall Beckett’s Film quoting our fellow Irishman Bishop Berkeley – “To be is to be perceived.”
Gerard Byrne, For example ; a sketch of Five Elevations, 1971-72, HD video, loop, color, mute, multimedia player (full HD), 20 copies, 2 A.P. and 2 H.C., numbered, dated et signed. Edition of the Centre d’édition contemporaine, Geneva, 2011
Gerard Byrne’s works have been exhibited at Centraal Museum Utrech (2020), Sessession, Vienna (2019), Moderna Museet, Stockholm (2017), Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (2015), FRAC Pays de Loire, Nantes (2014), Baltimore Museum of Art (2013), Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2013), Whitechapel Gallery, London (2013), Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2013). Gall (2015), FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Nantes (2014), Baltimore Museum of Art (2013), Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2013), Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2013), Renaissance Society, Chicago (2011), Lisson Gallery, London and New York (2017, 2013, 2009 and 2007). He has also exhibited his works at the Kunstverein, Düsseldorf (2007) and for the Irish Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007). He has taken part in several group shows at Tate Britain, London (2006, 2010 and 2014), MUDAM, Luxembourg (2010), Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel (2010), Malmö Konsthall (2010) and Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2010), as well as the Turin, Gwangju and Sydney Biennales (2008) and the Lyon Biennale (2007). He took part in the ILLUMInazioni exhibition for the 54th Venice Biennale (2011), Documenta 13, Kassel (2012), The Art of Memory, Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm (2012), Salon der Angst, Kunsthalle, Vienna (2012) and Trapping Lions in the Scottish Highlands, Aspen Art Museum (2912), at Curiosity, De Appel, Amsterdam (2012), The Persistence of Objects, Lismore Castle, for Out of Body, Out of Time, Out of Place, Skulptur Projekte 2017, Münster (2017) and at the Busan Biennale (2020).
1 Penelope Curtis, “A local address”, in Gerard Byrne, Tuxedo Junction, 1960, Lismore Castle Arts, Lismore, Co Waterford, Ireland, 2010 2 Gerard Byrne, Tuxedo Junction, 1960, Lismore Castle Arts, Lismore, Co Waterford, Irelande, 2010, flyleaf
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
Gianni Motti’s work reveals the hidden facets of the political system, and of the state of the world more generally. The artist likes to consider “that which escapes the gaze,” beyond appearances and consciousness, such as paranormal and anticipation phenomena, sectarian movements, primitive instincts and conspiracy theories.
Gianni Motti’s works are neither sculptures nor installations, nor even ready-mades, or perhaps assisted ready-mades, sometimes multiples, rarely unique pieces, but foremost witness accounts – texts, photographs, films – of actions. Gestures to be considered “as is,” “as in life,” but which on closer inspection subvert and challenge their primary function and meaning, be it social, political or symbolic. Gianni Motti likes to demystify beliefs, morals and consensuses by reinvesting them with a new meaning, an offbeat and unexpected stance or a denunciation which is often ironic and critical.
Gianni Motti’s method of subversion seems akin to attempts at circumvention, or even sleights of hand: he died on July 29th, 1989, organised his own burial in Vigo (Entierro n°1) and gave himself the freedom to rise again, to become someone else and to choose his identity. The management of his retrospective in 2004 at the Migros Museum in Zurich (Plausible Deniability) was even more significant. The space was entirely divided up by plywood partitions, reconstructing an empty labyrinthine path that relentlessly directed the viewer towards the museum’s back courtyard. The absent works were replaced by a commentary, undertaken by several guides responsible for presenting the important stages of Gianni Motti’s work. The artist thereby substituted reality with narration; a means of organising and controlling his own posterity, proposing a narrative, constructing a legend and definitively conferring a fictional status on his artistic practice.
For the Videos: new and revisited project, and this first series of screenings, we present Gianni Motti’s video entitled Cosmic Storm, Cern, which was made at CERN using the infra-red technique. It recounts Gianni Motti’s experience, made possible thanks to a group of scientists who discovered the existence of neutrinos, invisible and evanescent particles derived from the nuclear reaction of the heart of the sun. Enclosed in a kind of box, Motti is repeatedly struck by these neutrinos whose trajectories can be visualised thanks to a system of detectors. These inframince particles continuously strike all bodies, human or otherwise, and are constantly present in our environment, without us ever seeing or perceiving them. They can travel miles to hit mountains or land at the bottom of oceans.
This video is an edition produced by the CEC for Gianni Motti’s solo exhibition, Perpetual Channel, which took place in November 2006, presenting his immersion for several days in the very closed world of CERN and its researchers.
Gianni Motti (1958, Sondrio) lives and works in Geneva. His work has been presented in various solo exhibitions, such as EX-POSITION21, Galerie Mezzanin, Geneva (2021); Ex-position at the Helmhaus, Zurich (2018). He has also taken part in numerous group exhibitions: Vertrauen at the Helmhaus Zurich, Zurich (2022); Acquisitions 2021 at the Fonds d’art contemporain de la Ville de Genève (2022).
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
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.
This video is a recording of a performance by Roman Signer, filmed behind closed doors directly in the Centre’s exhibition room (in 1990, Centre genevois de gravure contemporaine) prior to his solo exhibition, which ran from October 26th to December 8th, 1990. He presented the various elements used for this performance: a helicopter with a brush, a tin can filled with black ink and nine paintings.
For this action, a model helicopter was fitted with a paintbrush at its base. The helicopter had to fly back and forth between a can filled with black paint, placed in the centre of a set of nine blank canvases on the ground. With each rotation, the helicopter, guided by an expert model pilot, dipped its brush into the tin can and deposited black paint on each of the canvases, producing a series of informal paintings.
“Roman Signer works with the natural elements – water, fire, air, earth – and sometimes with manufactured or industrialised objects such as crates, drums, balloons or furniture, making them fly, fall, explode, fill up, empty, etc., like Richard Serra when he proposed his famous list of action verbs “to lift, to curl, to roll, to bend, to tie, to curve, to inlay, to splash…” in 1967-1968. Roman Signer favours the unfolding, the process and the idea of sculpture in motion. His latest film retraces an action that lasted over a month, Aktion mit einer Zündschnur, between Appenzell and St Gallen. A 20km-long wick was placed along the railway line linking the two towns. The fuse was set off at Appenzell station, and ended at St. Gallen station. Roman Signer and his team had to monitor the flame’s path and detonate it every 100 metres. So there were 200 explosions, every 4 and a half hours, with the flame travelling at a speed of a metre per quarter of an hour. Far from being a minor calculation problem, this action confronted the violence of each explosion, the derisory repetition of the same brief incident with the stretching of the total time (35 days). It took the form of an initiatory journey in which a balance between the concentration of energy and its release had to be maintained. Roman Signer seeks a certain domination of space and time that requires attention and psychic dispositions for each action, expressed through games that are often violent and dangerous, but always poetic, magical and humorous. So Roman Signer is not just a kind of genius pyrotechnician, but an artist who is interested in situations of tension, in order to create movements and aesthetic forms that exploit the various physical capacities of each chosen “object”. The event can be remarkably simple, as in the case of Boîte aux feuilles mortes (1982), which is placed under trees and fills up with leaves as the autumn season progresses.”
(Extract from the press release for Roman Signer’s solo exhibition, Installation hélicoptère, 1990, which ran from 26.10 to 8.12.1990)
Roman Signer, Installation hélicoptère, 1990, video, PAL, 5′, colour, sound, model helicopter pilot: Armin Caspari, images: Simon Lamunière, 10 U-Matic copies numbered 1 to 10 and 5 H.C. copies numbered I to V and signed, 20 VHS copies numbered 1 to 20 and 4 H.C. copies numbered I to IV and signed. Centre genevois de gravure contemporaine/CEC, 1990
Roman Signer was born in Appenzell in 1938. He lives and works in St. Gallen. Amongst his many solo exhibitions, his most recent include: Kunsteinrichtung Roman Signer, Villa Garbald, Castagne (2023); Roman Signer. Schenkung der Ursula Hauser Sammlung, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (2023); Roman Signer, Malmö Konsthall, Sweden (2023); Roman Signer. Installation, Stampa, Basel (2022), Roman Signer. Sculptures and an installation, Art: Concept, Paris (2022); Roman Signer, FRAC Franche-Comté (2022); Roman Signer. Vier Apfel / Four Apples 2011-2021, The Little Art Window, Gstaad (2021). His work has also been included in group exhibitions includeing: Schildkrötentempel. Kleine Skulpturen und Objekte, Rehmann Museum, Laufenburg (2023); Gruppenausstellung, Hauser & Wirth Somerset, Bruton (2023); On Kawara. Eine Hommage an On Kawara und Hiroko Kawahara, Kunstzone Lokremise, St. Gallen (2022); Show Your Work, 601Artspace, New York (2022); Moment.Monument, Kunst Museum Winterthur, Winterthur (2021); The Paradox of Stillness: Art, Object, and Performance, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2021).
This project is sponsored by the Federal Office of Culture and the Republic and the Canton of Geneva.
