Nouveau Départ 4'33''
With: Constance Allen, Sabine Banovic , Fabiana de Barros, Valérie Belin, Mila Mayer, Corinne Mercadier, Catherine Rebois and Viviane van Singer
Opening March 25th at 6pm
Exhibition from March 26 to May 9th, 2014
Opening Hours: Monday through Friday from 11am to 5pm and by appointment.
Curated by Carmen del Valle
It would be possible to situate the origin of this brief chronology of silence in 1958, when Yves Klein’s exhibition entitled Le Vide opens at Iris Clert gallery, in Paris. Klein set the gallery completely empty and didn’t install any work. To be more precise, the work is the void, the absence of what it should be, appear or disturb.
We could continue this story backwards a few years yet to arrive in 1952. The scene is then located in Woodstock, New York. The poet, musician and composer John Cage performs for the first time his work 4'33'' Silence. The score gives precise orders that must be followed and interpreted: do not perform any sound, no movement, in three stages. The result is four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence; that means the paradigm of all silences.
The work Closed Gallery, by Barry, in 1969, was an invitation to the exhibition where it was written: "The gallery will be closed throughout the duration of this exhibition."
All these radical actions prove the existence of certain contradictions – notwithstanding the time and conditions of avant-garde around them – although nowadays they wouldn’t be put in doubt: the contradiction itself upon the myth of the imperceivable, inaudible and invisible work. The Silence or the emptiness exists only in relation to its opposite: the vacuum does not exist without the object, and the silence without sound. In these works, silence is the final object. It is the answer to a world in which all, or almost everything is the equivalent to the absence of communication, except perhaps an excess of words.
Nouveau Départ: 4'33'' intends to analyze the relationship between silence and art from another point of view : the silence here does not refer to the result, as denial of the work, but as a fundamental and integrated part of the process. (Death to work, live to the process!)
Silence may be a way of saying things.
Nothing corresponds to the appearances, it is all about relations and referrals, repeated patterns that suggest a continuous movement. No work has as a starting point, no time is complete; entire. The link between the ten artists gathered at Nouveau Départ: 4'33'' is neither the use of similar techniques, nor the similarity in aesthetics, but rather an attitude that links them to the insinuation, the games, the allusions, to see and be seen, which converts the viewer into an uncomfortable guest.
That said, the exhibition is organized into three cores that deals with different conceptual aspects; different meanings of quietness: the silence as a place of non-communication, as a place of action and, finally, as a place of intimacy.
Thus, the works presented go from the radical body experimentation of Catherine Rebois to the baroque space of Valérie Belin’s silverware. This is opposed to the formal suggestion of Sabine Banovic. The same opposed, precise and mathematical direction is suggested in the indefinitely repeated module in the air by Constance Allen. Endlessly repeated, nonstop, the obsessions are quiet: Sei tutto tuo padre , sei tutto tua madre, an uncomfortable truth in the mirror, and an obsessive background sound, repetitive, the same sentence, the same refrain, and Vivianne Van Singer’s reflex. Mila Mayer’s photos also are witnessing the silence of obsolete items that are no longer in use because nobody speaks. This conversation, what they say or what we said, does not exist in Fabianna de Barros’ vídeo because her characters do not even look at each other, they are too focused on keep moving, climbing, going up without knowing exactly where to or why.
Here nothing is related to the appearances, here everything is about relationships, obsessions that they say in a low voice in a gray afternoon repeated a thousand times.
Art is a transparency talent. Create to return, to review or see things like never before. To review things also means to say it again or to shout in the empty space of a deaf scream.
Carmen del Valle
With: Constance Allen, Sabine Banovic , Fabiana de Barros, Valérie Belin, Mila Mayer, Corinne Mercadier, Catherine Rebois and Viviane van Singer
Opening March 25th at 6pm
Exhibition from March 26 to May 9th, 2014
Opening Hours: Monday through Friday from 11am to 5pm and by appointment.
Curated by Carmen del Valle
It would be possible to situate the origin of this brief chronology of silence in 1958, when Yves Klein’s exhibition entitled Le Vide opens at Iris Clert gallery, in Paris. Klein set the gallery completely empty and didn’t install any work. To be more precise, the work is the void, the absence of what it should be, appear or disturb.
We could continue this story backwards a few years yet to arrive in 1952. The scene is then located in Woodstock, New York. The poet, musician and composer John Cage performs for the first time his work 4'33'' Silence. The score gives precise orders that must be followed and interpreted: do not perform any sound, no movement, in three stages. The result is four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence; that means the paradigm of all silences.
The work Closed Gallery, by Barry, in 1969, was an invitation to the exhibition where it was written: "The gallery will be closed throughout the duration of this exhibition."
All these radical actions prove the existence of certain contradictions – notwithstanding the time and conditions of avant-garde around them – although nowadays they wouldn’t be put in doubt: the contradiction itself upon the myth of the imperceivable, inaudible and invisible work. The Silence or the emptiness exists only in relation to its opposite: the vacuum does not exist without the object, and the silence without sound. In these works, silence is the final object. It is the answer to a world in which all, or almost everything is the equivalent to the absence of communication, except perhaps an excess of words.
Nouveau Départ: 4'33'' intends to analyze the relationship between silence and art from another point of view : the silence here does not refer to the result, as denial of the work, but as a fundamental and integrated part of the process. (Death to work, live to the process!)
Silence may be a way of saying things.
Nothing corresponds to the appearances, it is all about relations and referrals, repeated patterns that suggest a continuous movement. No work has as a starting point, no time is complete; entire. The link between the ten artists gathered at Nouveau Départ: 4'33'' is neither the use of similar techniques, nor the similarity in aesthetics, but rather an attitude that links them to the insinuation, the games, the allusions, to see and be seen, which converts the viewer into an uncomfortable guest.
That said, the exhibition is organized into three cores that deals with different conceptual aspects; different meanings of quietness: the silence as a place of non-communication, as a place of action and, finally, as a place of intimacy.
Thus, the works presented go from the radical body experimentation of Catherine Rebois to the baroque space of Valérie Belin’s silverware. This is opposed to the formal suggestion of Sabine Banovic. The same opposed, precise and mathematical direction is suggested in the indefinitely repeated module in the air by Constance Allen. Endlessly repeated, nonstop, the obsessions are quiet: Sei tutto tuo padre , sei tutto tua madre, an uncomfortable truth in the mirror, and an obsessive background sound, repetitive, the same sentence, the same refrain, and Vivianne Van Singer’s reflex. Mila Mayer’s photos also are witnessing the silence of obsolete items that are no longer in use because nobody speaks. This conversation, what they say or what we said, does not exist in Fabianna de Barros’ vídeo because her characters do not even look at each other, they are too focused on keep moving, climbing, going up without knowing exactly where to or why.
Here nothing is related to the appearances, here everything is about relationships, obsessions that they say in a low voice in a gray afternoon repeated a thousand times.
Art is a transparency talent. Create to return, to review or see things like never before. To review things also means to say it again or to shout in the empty space of a deaf scream.
Carmen del Valle
Constance Allen
Geneva, 1982
Lives and works in Geneva
57.1 x 91, 2014
nylon, steel and black pigment
7.9 x 7.9 m
Geneva, 1982
Lives and works in Geneva
57.1 x 91, 2014
nylon, steel and black pigment
7.9 x 7.9 m
Sabine Banovic
Gena, 1973
Lives and works in Berlin
Morgenlied (morning song), 2014
Ink and pigmented marker on paper
249 x 143 cm
Gena, 1973
Lives and works in Berlin
Morgenlied (morning song), 2014
Ink and pigmented marker on paper
249 x 143 cm
Fabiana de Barros
Sao Paulo, 1957
Lives and works in Geneva
Tree Dance, 2010
Vidéo sur DVD – PAL4 :3 – silent – 9 minutes – autoplay – autoloop
Ed 5 exemplaires, numbered + 3E.A.
Sao Paulo, 1957
Lives and works in Geneva
Tree Dance, 2010
Vidéo sur DVD – PAL4 :3 – silent – 9 minutes – autoplay – autoloop
Ed 5 exemplaires, numbered + 3E.A.
Valérie Belin
Boulogne-Billancourt, 1964
Lives and works in Paris
Serie "Argenteries" , 1994
edition of 3, numbered et 2 E.A
Boulogne-Billancourt, 1964
Lives and works in Paris
Serie "Argenteries" , 1994
edition of 3, numbered et 2 E.A
Corinne Mercadier
Paris, 1955
Lives and works in Paris
Série Intérieurs, 1998-2000
Série 14 photographs
Ed. 5 examplaires
80 x 82 cm
Paris, 1955
Lives and works in Paris
Série Intérieurs, 1998-2000
Série 14 photographs
Ed. 5 examplaires
80 x 82 cm
Mila Mayer
Rio de Janeiro, 1966
Lives and works in Sao Paulo
Sintonia 1, 2014
c-print under plexi
Ed 5 exemplaires, numbered + 2E.A.
100 x 150 cm
Rio de Janeiro, 1966
Lives and works in Sao Paulo
Sintonia 1, 2014
c-print under plexi
Ed 5 exemplaires, numbered + 2E.A.
100 x 150 cm
Catherine Rebois
Nantes, 1960
Lives and works in Paris
Un corps et un esprit, 2013
Series of 21 images
8.3 x 8.3 cm
Nantes, 1960
Lives and works in Paris
Un corps et un esprit, 2013
Series of 21 images
8.3 x 8.3 cm
Vivianne Van Singer
Como, 1957
Lives and works in Geneva
Tutto Tutta, 2014
Miror sablé
Ed. 2 exemplaires + 1 EA
50 x 60cm
Como, 1957
Lives and works in Geneva
Tutto Tutta, 2014
Miror sablé
Ed. 2 exemplaires + 1 EA
50 x 60cm