26/2/2003
Eau et Gaz a tous les etages
Mamco, Geneve
Has Mamco become a turn-of-the-century bourgeois building ? This Spring, Eau et Gaz à tous les étages (water and gas on all floor), the third episode of our exhibition cycle Rien ne presse/Slow and Steady/Festina Lente presents a choice of exhibits that swaps looks at traditional mediums of painting, as well as at the many uses of numeric techniques.
Opening and Manor Prize Award Thursday, 27 February, from 6 p.m.
Press conference Thursday, 27 February, at 11.15 a.m.
EAU ET GAZ A TOUS LES ETAGES
Noël Dolla, Non
Anne Marie Jugnet & Alain Clairet, Alpine + Cadiz
Geneva News 2 : Ch. Floquet, H. Graumann (Prix Manor 2003), S. Lamunière,
T. Morgan, N. Novarina & M. Croubalian, A. O'Neill, P. Weidmann
Bonus : Devon Dikeou, Miguel Egaña, Christian Lhopital, Sada Tangara, Ivana Keser
Rien ne presse/Slow and Steady/Festina Lente, third episode
Eau et Gaz à tous les étages – from 28 February to 20 April 2003
Has Mamco become a turn-of-the-century bourgeois building ? This Spring, Eau et Gaz à tous les étages (water and gas on all floor), the third episode of our exhibition cycle Rien ne presse/Slow and Steady/Festina Lente presents a choice of exhibits that swaps looks at traditional mediums of painting, as well as at the many uses of numeric techniques. On the fourth floor, a significant monograph of Noël Dolla presents works coming from the artist’s studio, most of them rarely if not ever shown before. Through their large formats, the works of Anne Marie Jugnet & Alain Clairet shown on the second floor decipher in an unusual manner TV frame cuts. Geneva News 2 brings together monographs of seven artists working in Geneva, among them Hervé Graumann, laureate of the Manor Prize 2003. Lastly, as with each new hangings done within the museum-in-motion guiding principles, the permanent collection will be rearranged and supplemented with various Bonus.
Noël Dolla, Non, 1967-2001
The first Noël Dolla retrospective held outside France, Non, offers Mamco a new opportunity to examine the forms and meaning of this canonic type of a monographic exhibition. Rather than to follow a chronological order, the works will be structured around a kaleidoscopic pattern. Five of the eight areas will be organised in an equivalent manner, articulating works of various periods and different series with a view to show the multiple interconnections to be found in the artist’s works, beyond their apparent disparity. In other words, the exhibition is an attempt to operate a general synchronisation of the works’ corpus that has been built in successive scansions and constant shifting for well over 30 years.
Anne Marie Jugnet & Alain Clairet, Alpine + Cadiz, 1997-2003
They live and work together according to their own formula. In search of imperceptible images seen through a computer filter, Anne Marie Jugnet & Alain Clairet draw sizeable stencils of unspecific forms. The Tapes, Les Neiges, Les Éraflures and Les Dégradés are parts of a sequence of patterns issued from the beginnings and ends of videotapes that are bound to the onlooker’s eyes. Their more recent paintings capture the instant when the TV set is turned off, the instant when the cathodic tubes show but the red, blue and green primary colors. In addition, their photographs will be shown at the Centre de la Photographie in Geneva.
Geneva News 2
In 1995, shortly after it opened its doors, Mamco presented a summary of the Geneva artistic “engagé†scene with Geneva News’ first episode : A. Bianchini, N. Fernandez, S. Landry, S. Lamunière and Ch. Robert-Tissot. In the series’ second episode, Simon Lamunière1 installs his collection of Kinder Surprise gadgets in the institutionalised show-window whilst Amy O’Neill2, as rumours of war are growing louder and louder, induces the visitor to penetrate into the phantasmagoric replica of a bunker. Christian Floquet’s3 recent large bicolor acrylics evade the white wall’s ambush by showing a wide array of colors. The “best-off†Patrick Weidmann’s4 photographs presented under the number of their negatives suggests a universe where the abstraction of technical details and places of living or dying deprecates the search for fictive happiness. And it is a cyber-world peopled by insensitive cyborgs Nathalie Novarina and Marcel Croubalian5 simultaneously create and explore in an attempt to escape the human overpowering grasp. In giving life to Herman in the 70s, Tony Morgan6 used his own body as the basis for his work while running the risk of being overtaken by his creature. Mirror of the world and hero in spite of himself of videos, photographs and performances, Herman goes towards the public as an artist and a human being. Within a similar frame of schizophrenia, Hervé Graumann7 laureate of the Manor Prize 2003, celebrates the tenth anniversary of his numeric artist that turns out works in his virtual studio at an industrial rate. He states on his Internet site “Collect within minutes unique and original pictures by Raoul Pictor ! 24/24 7/7â€. At Mamco, Raoul Pictor ministers from a studio that has become factual, thus evading the informatics field.
Bonus
Between irony and gravity, four artists are regrouped in Bonus. In Mamco’s hall, Devon Dikeou’s8 clock time invites the visitor to punch his ticket, as if entering his place of work - an industrial memento of his visit. Miguel Egaña installs once more L’Art (c’est) Secondaire (1979) as it figured on the windows of the apartment of the art collector Ghislain Mollet-Viéville, recreated at Mamco after it opened. The Christian Lhopital9 graphite creatures lacerated with eraser strikes are invading the walls of the Siouxtine Chapel that holds for a second time the works of a contemporary fresco painter. With his photographs, Sada Tangara10 steals images of children sleeping in the streets of Dakar, drawing an uncompromising portrait of a suffering Africa. And last but not least, Mamco is again opening its doors to the Cabinet des estampes (presently under renovation) with an exhibition devoted to the Croatian artist Ivana Keser11.
With the support of AFAA for the Anne Marie Jugnet & Alain Clairet and Noël Dolla exhibitions
and the Nestlé Art Foundation for the Amy O’Neill exhibition.
Sunday, 16 March, 3 p.m., free guided tour
Commentaries
Tuesday, 4 March, 6.30 p.m., Christian Bernard, Eau et Gaz à tous les étages
Tuesday 25 March, 6.30 p.m., Christophe Cherix, Ivana Keser
Tuesday, 8 April, 6.30 p.m., Sophie Costes and Claude-Hubert Tatot, Tony Morgan
Conferences
Thursday, 13 March, 6.30 p.m., Eric de Chassey, L’abstraction, symptôme social et modèle politique
Thursday, 27 March, 6.30 p.m., Jean-Marc Poinsot, Au belvédère de l’exposition
New
First Sunday of the month: free admission
Press
Alicia Treppoz-Vielle, Mamco, 10 rue des Vieux Grenadiers, 1205 Genève
Tél. +41 22 320 61 22 – Fax. +41 22 781 56 81
Next exhibition : Fragments d’un discours italien, 28 May – 20 September 2003
Image: Noël Dolla (*1945), Liina ja jäljet, 1971
Akryyli kankaalle, (3x) 74 x 61cm.
Collections du Centre Georges Pompidou. Musée national d'art moderne, Paris.
Photo: Bertrand Prévost/Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Mamco, 10 rue des Vieux-Grenadiers, CH-1205 Genève
tel. +41 22 320 61 22 ; fax. +41 22 781 56 81