Swiss Institute Seeks to Highlight Concerns Around Climate Change – ARTnews.com

For over 35 years, the Swiss Institute in New York has cast a fame as an unbiased nonprofit dedicated to supporting and exhibiting modern up to date artwork. As its title signifies, the institute has been an necessary platform for bringing consideration to Swiss artwork and artists whereas additionally serving as a bridge between Europe and the United States.

Yet, prior to now, the Swiss Institute has every so often championed artists from totally different elements of the world, akin to Sandra Mujinga, Olga Balema, and Rodrigo Hernández, and labored to lengthen its roster of exhibitions past the Swiss context. But earlier this yr, a change in its management with the appointment of curator Stefanie Hessler as the following director has primed Swiss Institute to solidify the enlargement of the group’s purview.

“At S.I. there is a focus on introducing emerging artists but also on shining a new light on established artists as well as those who are underrepresented or who should have had exhibitions in an institution in New York but haven’t,” Hessler just lately informed ARTnews.

The institute’s present exhibition of Karen Lamassone (on view by January 8) is the primary worldwide survey of the cutting-edge Colombian American artist who had a big position within the male-dominated artwork and movie scenes of Bogotá and Cali in the course of the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s. Featuring works from the whole lot of Lamassone’s profession with a particular give attention to her portrayal of girls as “desiring subjects,” Hessler believes this retrospective illustrates most of the parts the Institute plans to prioritize shifting ahead.

“The Karen Lamassone show ties beautifully into this idea of being able to present positions that have not had representation in New York [while] creating bridges between New York City and Europe, but also internationally,” she stated.

Organized in partnership with the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, and the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellín, Lamassone’s present will journey to each Germany and Colombia subsequent yr. “Collaboration is going to be very central to what we do, which I think is important to better support artists, create dialogues across disciplines and geographies, and think in terms of resources,” Hessler stated.

Due to her skilled expertise, the brand new director can also be intent on increasing Swiss Institute’s work relating to local weather change, ecology, and environmental justice. From 2016 to 2019, Hessler served as curator of TBA21–Academy, an arts group centered on defending the ocean that was based by ARTnews Top 200 Collector Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza in 2011. “My background is very much related to questions of ecology, and I’ve been doing that kind of work for a long time as a curator, both looking at the ocean and thinking about our human relationship to nature,” she stated. 

In specific, Hessler defined that the idea of “planetarity,” coined by Indian scholar Gayatri Spivak, has been helpful to take into consideration how she is going to deal with questions of ecology and social justice in her future curatorial work on the group. “[Spivak’s idea conceives] the planet as something that connects us all. It’s a concept that emphasizes inequities…it allows us to see things in connection but without leveling out differences,” she stated.

Moving ahead, Hessler hopes to give attention to these issues by making all selections at Swiss Institute with local weather motion in thoughts and championing programming that facilities artists engaged on ecology and local weather.

For occasion, this month, Swiss Institute started a collection of public packages beneath the title “These Seasons” that discover the idea of seasons as indicators of world warming, social rituals, moods, and politics, whereas additionally fascinated by these durations by the lens of nature, ecology, and local weather motion. The collection—set to run effectively into 2023— will embody talks, performances, movie screenings, and different artworks by artists akin to Ravi Agarwal, Mimi Park, Himali Singh Soin, Mel Y. Chen, and Jenna Sutela.

At the second, the exhibitions on present at SI had been conceived and curated by Hessler’s predecessor, Simon Castets. And formally, exhibitions curated by Hessler will start subsequent yr in May, beginning with a solo present of Swedish artist Lap-See Lam (a collaboration between the Swiss Institute and Portikus, Frankfurt). In Fall 2023, Hessler has deliberate solo exhibits that includes British-American visible artist Danielle Dean and Swiss artist Guillaume Dénervaud.

Speaking concerning the continued position of S.I. as an necessary platform for Swiss artwork and Switzerland-based artists, Hessler defined this emphasis will stay necessary to the Institute. “Thankfully, we don’t think of Swiss artists as limited to nationality, but people who have a connection with Switzerland, live there, or have had an important exhibition or career there. So there are certain exhibitions which will [still] connect to that,” she stated.

Looking additional into the long run, Hessler stated she plans to proceed the group’s legacy of centering artists by thematic exhibitions, in addition to producing publications that might give attention to bigger subjects like “questions of ecology, questions of technology, and how we need to think about these together,” Hessler stated. “Questions of climate, ecology, and environmental justice are going to accompany us because these issues aren’t going anywhere.”

She added, “It’s an experiment and I’m excited [because] I think of S.I. as a bridge between various disciplines, geographies, and artists.”