The Exhibition as Medium… but not the Ghost, the Other One
The Lab.Zone “The Exhibition as Medium… but not the Ghost, the Other One” choreographs structured chaos in the form of an evolving exhibition that will activate and change sites over the course of 20 hours between the Forde exhibition space and the independent cinema Le Spoutnik in Geneva.
As artists, let us seize the exhibition as a medium for creation. Let us conceive of it not as a collection of art objects or a showcase prescribed by the forms that inhabit it, but as a structure producing shared realities. Let us envision it as a period of time to punctuate, a space to choreograph, a place to observe, listen, feel, ingest, meet, exchange, eat, and project ourselves. Let us realise that an art object can only ever be transitory, that any anchoring or material gesture can only be conceived within a specific context, and is constantly reinterpreted according to point of view, time, and space. From there, let us produce an empathetic rather than didactic mediation. An openness conceived at the very level of the exhibition’s temporal structure. Let us integrate enough points of entry to allow different publics to pass through without simplistic flattening, condescension, or infantilisation.
Digging through archives and basements, let us bring forth a proliferating strangeness. Let us retrieve, articulate, and renegotiate the meaning of our predecessors’ words. Let us feed on experiences carried by contemporary art and its History: Lyotard’s Les Immatériaux, the experiments of Ruangruppa, Siegelaub and the XeroxBook, Lonzi’s Autorittrato, Tom Marioni and Cafe Society, Maria Lind’s Testa Konsthall, Maggie Nelson’s visions, or De la Barra’s manifesto for an exhibition in the tropics. Linking body and mind through total immersion, let us also nourish ourselves with excellent meals prepared by Laure and Roxane. Let us then add ourselves to these foundations. Let us inscribe our thoughts through collage, superimposition, juxtaposition, subtraction, let us add our works in dialogue, in opposition, or in a spirit of contradiction.
Concretely: we will work through immersive full-day sessions, during which sharing lunch is fully part of the pedagogy. The autumn semester will be dedicated to discovering our respective practices, building our theoretical, historical, and conceptual foundations, a research phase in the Work.Master archives, and the conception of the exhibition. The spring semester will be devoted to coordinating and producing the exhibition. The course concludes with the public opening of a 20-hour collective proposition hosted by the contemporary art space Forde and the independent cinema Le Spoutnik in Geneva. The exhibition will present works by artists selected during the research phase of the first semester, as well as proposals by students of the Lab.Zone. The entire exhibition process, from its conception to its dismantling, including the selection and invitation of artists, the exhibition text, and the production of communication materials will be fully undertaken by the Lab.Zone.
The Lab.Zone is conducted in French and English.
