Visual arts programme for January–July 2019

By new curator Claire Hoffmann

The Swiss Cultural Centre’s new visual arts programme features five exhibitions as well as a number of workshops, talks, round-table discussions and performances. In addition to presenting new projects by up-and-coming Swiss artists, among others, our programme shows a pronounced interest in feminism, particularly through the (re)discovery of female and feminist artists. The exhibitions will be accompanied by transdisciplinary encounters between artists, academics, practitioners and other specialists. The first of these events, Seeds & Soil (March 7–9, 2019), is about the ecological urgency around the use and care of our natural resources, bringing together artistic, scientific and philosophic approaches. The second, Tremblez tremblez (April 26–27, 2019), focuses on feminism, witches, art and education.

Lauren Huret: Praying for My Haters
February 3–April 28, 2019
Opening: February 2, 6–9pm

For her first solo show in France, Lauren Huret zooms in on an invisible aspect of the Internet: the deletion of images which, paradoxically, leave traces. To stem the flow of violent, offensive and traumatizing images constantly bombarding platforms like Facebook and Instagram, social networking services call on subcontractors who employ hundreds of thousands of behind-the-scenes “content moderators,” in many cases halfway round the world, to sift through and filter out this toxic content. Lauren Huret combines her research with in-the-field documentary practice, filming sweatshops in Manila where the daily task of viewing and filtering toxic videos and photographs is outsourced to an invisible workforce. In her new film and through a sculptural architectural model that reflects the labyrinthine system of these remote offices and networks, she fuses documentary with a haunting surreal phantasmagoria that evokes the murky world of these invisible net scrubbers, whose harrowing work is shrouded in secrecy.

Pedro Wirz: A Curbing Wall of Debris / Nesting
February 3–March 24, 2019
Opening: February 2, 6–9pm
 
For his first solo show in France, Swiss-Brazilian artist Pedro Wirz’s immersive installation consists of a warm, earthy habitat, a cocoon or nest that could give rise to life. The life form that could emerge from this breeding ground would break down the boundaries we’ve constructed between nature and culture, between human and animal architecture, embodying a balance between the two within an ambiguous aesthetic. Pedro Wirz uses images, forms and materials that evoke ancient myths while asking what new narratives, born of contemporary fears and hopes, might emerge from the fertile soil of the present day and age.

Doris Stauffer. I Can Make a Lion Disappear
March 31–May 12, 2019
Opening: March 30, 6–9pm

The object of this first institutional exhibition devoted to Doris Stauffer (1934–2017) is to present the various facets—feminist/activist, educational/pedagogic, poetic and visual—of her work. In addition to her artistic activity, the show highlights her pioneering efforts to introduce new methods of teaching art as well as her active involvement in the struggle for gender equality in Switzerland. After studying photography at Zurich’s Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts) in the 1950s, Stauffer began experimenting with her first assemblages. She returned to the Kunstgewerbeschule to work on methods of art education in 1969, eventually co-founding an experimental art school called F+F. A feminist activist from the 1960s on, Stauffer was involved in the Swiss women’s liberation movement (Frauenbefreiungsbewegung, FBB) and began teaching classes in “witchcraft” in 1980.

Nives Widauer: Antichambre (“Antechamber”)
May 18–July 21, 2019
Opening: May 17, 6–9pm

For her first solo show in France, Nives Widauer presents a series of drawings, paintings and multimedia installations. As a video artist, she superimposes moving images on objects or within large installations. Her projections mark the intersections between the time of an ebbing individual human life and ageless mythological narratives. In Antichambre, Widauer offers a personal vision of this place of passage—an image that she ties into a vision of the passage of time, asking how art can revive forgotten objects and symbols to resonate with the present.

Reto Pulfer: Bourgeon purin pur (“Pure Liquid Manure Buds”)
May 18–July 21, 2019
Opening: May 17, 6–9pm
Performance: March 9, 10am

Reto Pulfer’s exhibition unfolds in two stages. In March, a performance involving the planting of nettles and morning glories (Ipomoea) will give rise to an installation entitled Ipomoea baignoirensis in the CCS courtyard. And an exhibition in May will attempt an experimental approach to (re)discovering the metamorphic capacities of stinging nettles, edible medicinal plants that propagate by means of underground rhizomes. Reto Pulfer’s immersive installations are often composed of painted and dyed textiles that create colourful floating spaces inside our White Cube. For his extended, two-part project at CCS he will investigate the concept of wild plants as unrestrained living beings and their intrinsic site-specificity.