News by Pavilion of Switzerland at the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia

Moving Backwards - Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz  Curator: Charlotte Laubard  Commissioner: Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia – Marianne Burki, Head of Visual Arts; Sandi Paucic, Project Leader; Rachele Giudici Legittimo, Project Coordinator Press conference: Wednesday, 8 May 2019, 2pm  Official opening: Thursday, 9 May 2019, 2.30pm  Exhibition: 11 May to 24 November 2019  Pre-opening: 8 to 10 May 2019  Venue: Pavilion of Switzerland, Giardini della Biennale, Venice

At the 58th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, artist duo Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz will transform the Swiss Pavilion into a vast immersive installation. Entitled «Moving Backwards», the project explores, in a time of massive backlash, resistance practices, combining guerrilla techniques, postmodern choreography and urban dance, as well as elements of queer underground culture. Curator Charlotte Laubard, who is responsible for the Swiss Pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2019, has invited artists Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz to present an installation, which includes a new video work. Entitled «Moving Backwards», the exhibition reflects on the current political situation, characterised by its regressive and reactionary forces of closure towards the other and towards difference. Faced with the scale of this recent backlash, the artists, instead of practicing an outright opposition, suggest «backward movements» as a potential tool for producing alternative forms of resistance and action. Since the beginning of their collaboration in 2007, Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz have been continuously reflecting on the visibility and the existence of the other beyond the binarisms and categories that define our identities. Through filming and staging their performances in installations, the artist duo seeks to reveal what, in the constructed and composite character of identities, can undo our stereotypical representations in order to consider new relationships and to invent new modes of coexistence. As Charlotte Laubard observes: «Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz conceive their installations as devices that lead us to renegotiate our representations. Their work produces a double inversion: it introduces gestures, images and objects that refer to current political and social issues. At the same time, it grants these elements a high degree of autonomy so that they can interact with the public and establish interrelations that challenge our modes of perception and identification. » For the Biennale Arte 2019, the artists will develop a large film installation involving performers Julie Cunningham, Werner Hirsch, Latifa Laâbissi, Marbles Jumbo Radio and Nach who will experiment with backward movements. Invited to enter a dense choreography generated by body movements, film loops and animated objects, visitors will participate in strange encounters, in an environment reminiscent of a nightclub. Their physical and sensory experience will be complemented by moments of reflection on the Pavilion’s theme in the form of a free journal containing statements written by a dozen authors from the fields of philosophy, art, political activism, post-colonial and queer theories. Project journal and catalogue:  In addition to a project journal, which is to be distributed at the Pavilion, a catalogue will be on sale at a later date. It includes statements, installation views, and essays in order to deepen and extend reflections on the exhibition.

Padiglione Svizzera

La 57. Mostra internazionale d’arte – la Biennale di Venezia si svolgerà dal 13 maggio al 26 novembre 2017 (vernice per la stampa: 10, 11 e 12 maggio 2017) ai Giardini, all’Arsenale così come in vari luoghi della città. La mostra principale «VIVA ARTE VIVA» è curata da Christine Macel.

Padiglione svizzero

La Fondazione svizzera per la cultura Pro Helvetia ha nominato il curatore Philipp Kaiser per il Padiglione svizzero nel 2017. Per la mostra «Women of Venice» vengono esposte opere inedite, realizzate appositamente per la Biennale di Venezia, di Carol Bove e Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler.

Salon Suisse

Diretto dalla curatrice Koyo Kouoh, il «Salon Suisse» 2017 presenta ATARAXIA, il programma di dibattiti ed eventi che avrà luogo parallelamente all’esposizione allestita nel Padiglione svizzero. Quale partner del «Salon Suisse», la società LAUFEN Bathrooms AG patrocina le manifestazioni a Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi.

Pavilion of Switzerland at the 56 Th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia

Pamela Rosenkranz

Our Product

«I think that it is more interesting to talk about art in terms of the material that determines the work, rather than the artist’s identity...» Pamela Rosenkranz

Carneam, Evoin, Gleen, Magmelia, Neoten, Rilin, Solood and Visorb are like Aspirin, Acrylic, Methylene, Spandex, Silicone and Titanium, both literally and metaphorically, the stuff that Pamela Rosenkranz’ work is made of. While we aren’t familiar with most of these materials, their omnipresence manifestly changes the physical as well as the psychic constitution of human beings. Yet it isn’t obvious how it does so. The human subject is nothing but a fluid trace, a serial association generated from synthetic materials. The anthropocentric bias of humanism is thus faced with its own obsolescence: human beings are neither the origin nor the apogee of thought.

In an era characterized by rapid technological change, ecological crisis, and the ascendancy of the natural sciences, challenging the idea of man as the measure of all things, and indeed asking again what it means to be human, has become a timely and urgent task. In her work, Pamela Rosenkranz uses cutting-edge media and medical technologies and engages with the most recent developments in the natural sciences. Armed with findings that irredeemably undermine essentialist anthropologies, she confronts us with new material configurations of the human which have far-reaching consequences for our understanding of art.

Rosenkranz’ exhibition transmutes the Pavilion of Switzerland into a body of a local, pinkish white skin color, which is fluid, smells, shines, sounds and moves. A pigment that originally emerged as the specific product of migration, sun-exposure, nutrition, and any number of other contingent factors is resynthesized as a stock formula, composed of unknown ingredients.

On the occasion of the 56th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia Pamela Rosenkranz designed a stamp for the Swiss post using a specially developed combination of skin color and texture, which is closely related to her exhibition at the Pavilion of Switzerland.

Salon Suisse: S.O.S. DADA – The World Is A Mess

On five weekends over the course of the Biennale the events program «Salon Suisse», initiated by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and organized by the Dada-specialists Juri Steiner and Stefan Zweifel is taking place at the Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi offering a platform for exchange on contemporary art and thought in a relaxed atmosphere. For this year’s «Salon» entitled «S.O.S. DADA – The World Is A Mess» Steiner and Zweifel invite their guests from all over the world to discuss the cross-epochal force and the timelessness of Dada. All events are free of admission and open to everyone. Partner of «Salon Suisse» is LAUFEN Bathrooms AG.

Curator: Susanne Pfeffer

Commissioner: Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia – Marianne Burki, Head of Visual Arts; Sandi Paucic, Project Leader Swiss participation Venice Biennale

Deputy commissioner: Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia – Rachele Giudici Legittimo, Coordination Swiss participation Venice Biennale

Press conference: Wednesday, 6 May 2015, 4 pm

Opening: Friday, 8 May 2015, 5 pm

Exhibition: 9 May to 22 November 2015

For further information please visit: www.biennials.ch