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Dance competition draws stars for celebration

PDL2012, photo Gregory Batardon, www.prixdelausanne.org

Article originally published by www.swissinfo.ch on 2 February 2012

The 2012 Prix de Lausanne international ballet competition culminates on February 5 with a gala to mark its 40th anniversary and celebrate a bright future.

One week a year, Lausanne becomes the dance capital of the world as 15 to 18 year-olds from ballet schools on all continents flock to Lausanne to take part in the competition.

Major artists coach, inspire and appraise them. And for dance lovers who cannot make it to Lausanne, the web takes the Prix to them.

In celebration of its 40th anniversary, the weeklong competition that ends on February 4 will be followed by a gala performance with 25 international ballet stars, most of them past laureates of the Prix. Amongst the big names are Laëtitia Pujol (Danseuse Etoile of the Paris Opera Ballet), Friedemann Vogel (Principal Dancer Stuttgart Ballet), Federico Bonelli (Principal of The Royal Ballet, London) and Mizuka Ueno (Principal Dancer of the Tokyo Ballet).

“It’s going to be absolutely breath-taking,” promised Beth Krasna, president of the board.

As the Prix de Lausanne enters its fifth decade, Krasna explained the innovations that keep it one step ahead of its time and why it stands out from other competitions.

To begin with, the Prix is not just a contest.  “It is a life-changing experience for all participants, not only those who go on to the finals,” she underlined.  “In most competitions, candidates leave as soon as they are eliminated, but we offer a full week of coaching and networking, regardless. ”

This year, 75 participants are competing, 20 will be selected for the final and eight of the finalists will receive the scholarships of their choice, including the laureate.

PDL2012, photo Gregory Batardon, www.prixdelausanne.org

$A visionary enterprise

When Philippe Braunschweig, the heir and manager of a Swiss watchmaking company started the Prix de Lausanne in 1972 with Elvire, his Russian ballerina wife and Rosella Hightower, the legendary American dancer, they were joined by Maurice Béjart in Brussels and the Royal Ballet in London.

“The founders had a very powerful vision,” Krasna said. The mission of the Prix, that has remained unchanged, is to find “young talent for the dance world of tomorrow”. But it also acts as a springboard to gifted young dancers who might otherwise not come in contact with renowned dance companies. It now includes contemporary dance as well as ballet.

Over the years, the number of international partner schools and dance companies has blossomed to respectively 21 and 29, adding an aura of prestige and credibility to the event.
 
The Braunschweigs remained at the Prix’s helm for 25 years, until they passed the reins in 1997 to executive and artistic committees. To head the organisation, they appointed Patricia Leroy, who is largely credited with the innovations that have allowed the Prix to stay in the lead.

PDL2012, photo Gregory Batardon, www.prixdelausanne.org

 

Education and health

A notable accomplishment is that the influence of the Prix de Lausanne now extends well beyond the annual gathering. It aims to give dancers, whose dancing careers are usually over by the age of 35 or 40, the life skills that will help them in their later lives.

“The philosophy of the Prix is totally holistic,” Krasna said, with a strong emphasis placed on education and health.
 
The young participants are made to understand that dance isn’t everything. “We want kids to finish their high school,” she said, even when they secure a place away from their homeland. When language is an issue, which is often the case, “correspondence courses are arranged under some kind of supervision”.

“We also believe that health is very important, so we screen the kids for health issues,” Krasna said.

The well-known problem of “excessive leanness” in the dancing profession, a disguised term for anorexia, is never ignored. Nor is the risk of osteoporosis, a bone density deficiency that often strikes dancers who did not acquire the nutritional habits needed for a physically demanding profession.

Amanda Bennett, the recently appointed artistic director, suggests that the profession as a whole – not just the individuals – benefits when the physical, emotional and mental well-being of dancers is taken into consideration, especially where there is such ethnic and cultural diversity.

“Dancers are very international,” she said, “since their art transcends all language barriers.”

Innovative strategies

Contributing to the huge following of the Prix is the digital strategy implemented by Jean-Paul Dinh, referred to affectionately by his colleagues as the “web guru”. Videos uploaded to YouTube, including a Christmas advent calendar prepared by a professional team, have been watched more than six million times.

“We try to broadcast our message, but also the emotion of dance and the spirit of the Prix de Lausanne through social media,” Dinh explained. All current platforms are used and live streaming takes place during the event.
 
“It’s incredible,” enthused the board president, “because during the competition, our website is in the top world one hundred, ahead of Davos and the Vatican!”

Photo ARC Jean-Bernard Sieber

At ground level, a riotously funny guerrilla publicity campaign took place in October 2011: iconic statues throughout Lausanne were dressed in blue tutus during the night to announce the 40th anniversary. They were made to be removed the next day.

Leading up to the competitions, spectacular large-scale photographs of the participants in the previous editions line a high-flying bridge in Lausanne, giving the impression that they are leaping over the railings.

 

Dance capital

Ever since Serge Diaghilev (Ballets Russes) and Vaslav Nijinski came to Lausanne early last century and Russian-French dancer Serge Lifar settled there, the city has acquired a reputation and following for dance.

A Dance Book publicises the many celebratory events this year, including the Béjart Ballet anniversary, attracted to Lausanne 25 years ago by the Braunschweigs.
 
“The Prix de Lausanne was such a huge steppingstone in my career. It opened so many doors,” declared Steven MacRae, the 2003 laureate who is now Principal with the Royal Ballet in London.

“Follow your dreams and dance with your heart,” advised 2010 winner, Emanuel Amuchástegui.

Photos that expose “The Other America”

Mitch Epstein, American Power, Plate-forme pétrolière “Ocean Warwick”, Dauphin Island, Alabama, 2005 / Ocean Warwick Oil Platform, Dauphin Island, Alabama, 2005, © Black River Productions, Ltd./Mitch Epstein. Courtesy Thomas Zander, Cologne

Article first published on 21 September 2011 by Swissinfo.ch: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/Photos_that_expose_The_Other_America.html?cid=31187806

In the wake of the 9/11 commemorations, three major contemporary American photographers present unfamiliar and intriguing images from the United States.

Emotion, power and nostalgia are the distinct themes presented in three parallel exhibitions under the collective title, “The Other America”, at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne.

By revealing the paradoxes of their homeland with images of sometimes brutal beauty, Frank Schramm, Saul Leiter and Mitch Epstein show us a different America.

The photographic language of the artists whose works fill Switzerland’s premier photography museum could not be further apart. But they share a sharp sobriety and elegance that challenges the divide between documentary photography and art.

“These three exhibitions encourage us to question our attitudes towards the US,” Elysée Director, Sam Stourdzé, said at the opening.

Frank Schramm, Stand-ups – Reporting Live from Ground Zero, 28 septembre, 2001 (#4) / September 28, 2001 (#4), ©Frank Schramm. Courtesy Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

Reporting from Ground Zero

Frank Schramm was in New York on September 11, 2001. But rather than chronicle the event, he stepped back to portray those who were on the frontline of the news delivery. Over the following weeks, he photographed the TV presenters who provided the news in an endless loop.

Segregated in an area on the West River at some distance from the cordoned-off Ground Zero, they became the “stand-ups” reporting the live events that they themselves were not allowed to see.

“Photographing the journalists became my way of dealing with my own emotions,” Frank Schramm told swissinfo.ch. “In my emotions, I was wondering how they were dealing with theirs.”

The resulting portraits, many of which have the glossy perfection of a fashion shot, have never been shown publicly before this year. None carry any names, although many of the portrayed presenters are well known.

“This work is not about the journalists. It’s not about who they are. It’s about: can a tragic event bridge towards art,” Schramm observed.

Pauline Martin, who curated the show, explained that the journalists, as they became the mediators of a nation’s collective trauma, were also unwittingly contributing to the success of the terrorist act by amplifying the media coverage.

“The series serves as a manifesto: terrorism cannot exist without the major role played by the media and the images they broadcast,” she insisted. Press fortunes and careers are made overnight by disasters.

“Life goes on, we move forward. I wanted to remember what we were feeling,” Schramm recalled.

Frank Schramm, Stand-ups – Reporting Live from Ground Zero, 17 septembre, 2001 (#5) / September 17, 2001 (#5)

“American Power”

Under the provocative and ambiguous title, “American Power”, Mitch Epstein documents the massive reliance of the US on unlimited amounts of energy.

From 2003 to 2008, Epstein crisscrossed the country in search of the installations either in use, or abandoned, that have contributed to the “power of America”.

“He uses an artistic approach to tackle important social issues,” Stourdzé said of Epstein, whom he considers to be one of the most important photographers today.

“By looking at the larger American landscape and identifying the sites that produce energy, I watch the story between communities, corporations and the government unfold,” Epstein explained, adding, “This work is a reflection on American culture at this time.”

He said that he was not an environmental activist, but that he realised that America takes a lot for granted. “We were handed a lot and we expect a lot. This has created a sense of entitlement.”

Mitch Epstein, American Power, Barrage de Hoover et Lac Mead, Nevada/ Arizona, 2007 / Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, Nevada/ Arizona, 2007, © Black River Productions, Ltd./Mitch Epstein. Courtesy Thomas Zander, Cologne

Politics are the driving agenda, according to Epstein. Workers who have contributed to the might of the nation become renegades when the power plants are abandoned or relocated. He sets out to tell their stories too.

“My pictures are complex because I want to produce a metaphorical narrative of things American and compress as much as I can into a single image,” he said.

It is not without irony that his panorama includes images of lakes once used to cool off nuclear power plants and that have now become leisure areas, mostly for immigrant workers.

The 65 pictures of scarred landscapes have a stand-alone perfection that makes them almost abstract. We are looking at a country’s destructive reliance on energy, but at its optimism as well.

Photography is a language, Epstein stated. “It is my job to use that language in all its fluency.”

“Early Color”

Sam Stourdzé, who curated the third show in a theatrical display that occupies the entire third floor of his museum, presented the works of Saul Leiter, too aged to be present.

Leiter, born in 1923, first trained as a painter before exploring photography. He discovered “street photography” by visiting the exhibition of Henri Cartier-Bresson at MoMa in 1947 and from there on began to photograph his environment. But he was less interested in scenes, than in capturing fragments of scenes.Saul Leiter: Early Color, Taxi, 1957

“His early attempts in black and white were fairly ordinary, but when he switched to colour, his eye as a painter and a colourist took over,” Strourdzé explained. Images become compositions, each one the beginning of a story.

“Leiter plunges us into a nostalgic America of the Fifties,” Stourdzé explained. “He is sharing his solitary moments of reverie.”

It is precisely the poetic dimension of The Other America that allows a documentary exhibition to emerge as art. Stourdzé is convinced that “visual narratives can transform the way we look at things”.

This is the first time the pictures have been shown in Switzerland.

Saul Leiter: Early Color, Parade, 1954

Innovative young designer Georgacopoulos takes over as head of ECAL design school

Alexis Georgacopoulos, new head of Ecal (photo Michèle Laird)

Article published by www.swissinfo.ch in an edited form on 15 August 2011

Taking risks will continue to be the order of the day for Switzerland’s premier design school under its new director.

Recently appointed to the helm of the Lausanne University of Art and Design (ECAL), Alexis Georgacopoulos has big shoes to fill following the 16-year reign of legendary Pierre Keller.

Keller transformed the small Lausanne art school into a major design university and relocated it to a former hosiery factory in Renens, which was redesigned by renowned Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi.

Bernard Tschumi’s renovation of the Iril Factory that now serves as ECAL © Peter Mauss

The school is now regarded by design magazine Wallpaper as “one of Europe’s leading art and design schools”,  and by Business Week as one of the top ten design schools in the world.

THE NEED TO SURPRISE

As he prepares his first year as ECAL director, he tells Swissinfo how he believes that risk-taking sparks the creativity that is the key to the school’s success.  It will continue to guide the school’s visual arts, industrial design and visual communication branches, he assures.

“We need to surprise our public, as well as our students.”

Georgacopoulos is no newcomer to ECAL since he arrived as a student in 1994 and has taken an active part in its spectacular development. By the age of 24 he had become the head of the industrial design department and has clocked up a number of design successes in his own right. He is now 35 years old.

“We realised very early on that good design results from taking risks and never repeating ourselves,” he said.

He identifies three events that allowed Ecal to become an international player: a prize in 2000 for a portable bread baguette design from the Saint Etienne Design Biennal; 2001’s inventive milking stools that continue to be presented at design fairs around the world; and anti-seismic tables.

“Baguette Portable”. By ECAL second year industrial design students under the direction of Alexis Georgacopoulos, 2000. Photo ECAL/Pierre Fantys

“People said we were completely mad, but in fact we were gaining the credentials that would allow us to create innovative partnerships with the companies that wanted to take the same risks as us,” Georgacopoulos said.

Furniture and kitchen makers B&B Italia and Boffi were the first on board, followed by Swiss International Air Lines, Nestlé, Swatch Group and Baccarat to name a few of the international companies which sought Ecal’s expertise.

PARTNERING UP WITH ALESSI

More recently, Italian design company Alessi asked Ecal design students to develop projects around the theme of the office and home study. The results were presented in Alessi’s showroom during the Milan Furniture Fair in April, and will travel to Belgium as part of Design September Brussels before heading to Tokyo’s Design Tide fair in October.

Alessi’s President Alberto Alessi said of the collaboration: “I am amazed by how much enthusiasm and depth was given to analyze the single functions, by the freshness of expression in all proposals and the pleasant quest for simplicity,” adding that the collaboration will carry on.

ECAL/Alessi, Salon international du Meuble de Milan 2011. Photo ECAL/Julien Chavaillaz

“Our students jump in the deep end,” Georgacopoulos indicates of the opportunity that ECAL offers them to work on partner projects already in their second year. “They receive immediate visibility and exposure and often cultivate the relationships that will serve them well when they leave the school.”

Nicolas Le Moigne began his training at Ecal in 2001. Two years later Italian interior design company Serralunga had already started producing his inclined “Pot au mur” flowerpot .

“It was unbelievable,” Le Moigne told swissinfo.ch while on his way to Mexico, where he will be teaching in a design school. “Ecal opens so many doors.”

He is now producing a magnetic candleholder with Atelier Pfister, created by the Swiss furniture store as a launching pad for young designers.

More than design

For Georgacopoulos, Ecal is much more than a design school. As evidence, he cites Ecal’s success at this year’s the Locarno Film Festival, at which three Ecal entries received prizes in the national short film competition.

“3 out of 3! An unbelievable success!” enthused Georgacopoulos. “Ecal is an art school where creativity is used to foster ideas and explore new directions in all areas.”

The short films presented in Locarno were the result of an alliance between the cinema section and Lausanne-based theatre school, La Manufacture. The project will be presented again at the Centre culturel suisse in Paris in November.

As for the visual arts, Georgacopoulos pointed to alumni artist Cyprien Gaillard, whose work will be exhibited at the Pompidou Centre modern art gallery in Paris this autumn, and David Hominal, Valentin Carron and Philippe Decrauzat whose work is also exhibited widely abroad.

“These are artists who reinvent themselves every day, often experimenting in new mediums,” he said.

This year more than 400 people applied for the 120 places at Ecal, and Georgacopoulos said his role is to act as something of a talent scout when interviewing prospective students.

“Under the layers of insecurity, you can usually spot those who have true potential and you start imagining the kinds of projects that they can start on. This is the thrilling part of my new job,” he said.

Designer Alexis Georgacopoulos

Class photo, ECAL/Lauris Paulus

Modern masters from a unique Swiss collection

“Van Gogh, Bonnard, Vallotton…”. Lausanne’s Fondation de l’Hermitage is offering a rare chance to view works by modern masters from the acclaimed Hahnloser collection.


Pierre Bonnard, Le débarcadère (ou L’embarcadère) de Cannes, 1934, huile sur toile, 43,5 x 56,5 cm, Hahnloser/Jaeggli Stiftung, Villa Flora, Winterthour © photo Reto Pedrini, Zurich © 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich

Article published in www.swissinfo.ch on 5 August 2011: Modern masters from a unique Swiss collection

Built up in Winterthur between 1905 and 1936 by an ophthalmologist, Arthur Hahnloser, and his artist wife, Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler, the collection is a valuable snapshot of a period in art history poised between Impressionism and Modernism.

It is also the uncommon story of how a Swiss family of neither great means, nor artistic standing, shaped a prestigious private collection.

“The collection is unique not only because of its vision and coherence, but also because it is one of the few private art collections that has remained virtually intact,” Angelika Affentranger-Kirchrath, curator of the Villa Flora in Winterthur, told swissinfo.ch.

Villa Flora is the former home of the Hahnloser family that became a museum in 1995. Inspired by the Viennese Secession style, or Jugendstil, it is considered a work of art in itself, but is not large enough to showcase the large art collection gathered over 30 years by the Hahnlosers.

The 150-work exhibition currently on view at Fondation de l’Hermitage in Lausanne provides an opportunity to grasp the significance of the obsessive collecting of a family from Winterthur, as well as discover some outstanding art.

Meeting with Hodler

It was the Graubünden painter Giovanni Giacometti, father of Alberto, who introduced the Hahnlosers to the art scene, including to Ferdinand Hodler, the controversial, but admired painter whose work they would subsequently defend.

Ferdinand Hodler, Le massif de la Jungfrau vu depuis Mürren, 1911, huile sur toile, 72 x 91 cm, Hahnloser/Jaeggli Stiftung, Villa Flora, Winterthour © photo Reto Pedrini, Zurich

Hedy later wrote of the encounter with Hodler, “We were experiencing for the first time what we would live through hundreds of times: the irrepressible desire to look at the world through the eyes of a master.”

“Hedy was clearly the driving force behind the collection,” says Affentranger, although she points out that Hedy’s husband, Arthur, and cotton magnate brother-in-law, Emil, also played active roles. Emil Hahnloser’s part of the collection reverted to the Hahnloser estate upon his death in 1940.

“She wanted above all to live with her times and  believed that art was actually the best way to do this,” says the curator of a woman whose Protestant upbringing and health problems due to tuberculosis were to leave the image of someone both incredibly strong and exceedingly frail. She survived her husband by 16 years.

“Hedy Hahnloser wanted to decorate life with art, but there was nothing ostentatious about her,” Affentranger says.

Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler at Villa Flora in Winterthur, 1935 (Willy Maywald)

From 1908 until the doctor’s sudden death in 1936 the couple made frequent trips to France, including to Cannes where they had purchased a house to be close to the artistic community.

They acquired works from the contemporary artists that they visited in their studios, often inviting them to stay at Villa Flora. This was a novel approach to collecting art, Affentranger emphasises.

The Hahnloser’s dedication to the artists of their times pinpoints moments in art history that are visible in the current exhibition.

A unique exhibition

“This is the first time that so many of the works have been displayed together,” Affentranger says, adding that the process of curating the Lausanne show in collaboration with Juliane Cosandier, the departing Hermitage director and her successor Sylvie Wuhmann, was a complex, but inspiring experience.

The collection threads it way through the gracious Lausanne mansion not in chronological order, but in single artist or thematic presentations, an arrangement that produces some interesting associations.

“The Nabis form the heart of the collection, so we decided to present a ‘collection within the collection’,” says Affentranger explaining the monographic displays by Pierre Bonnard and Félix Vallotton, the main proponents of the post-Impressionist movement who became close friends of the Hahnlosers.

Félix Vallotton,La Blanche et la Noire, 1913, huile sur toile, 114 x 147 cm, Hahnloser/Jaeggli Stiftung, Villa Flora, Winterthour © photo Reto Pedrini, Zurich

The intimacy of what Bonnard called his “enchanting moments” – women lost in reverie as they bathe or wait for something to happen – comes in stark contrast to the fiercely enigmatic works by Vallotton.

Fauvists

Other revelations include an Odilon Redon of unusually riotous colours and works by Impressionists of an unexpected nature: Paris rooftops by Cézanne, streaks of fireworks by Van Gogh and feathery landscapes by Renoir.

To cap the collection, the Fauve artists, who succeeded the Nabis, are represented by Matisse, Rouault and Henri Manguin, possibly previously unknown to many visitors.

Henri-Charles Manguin,La Sieste ou Le Rocking Chair, Jeanne, 1905, huile sur toile, 89 x 117 cm, collection privée, Villa Flora, Winterthour © photo Reto Pedrini, Zurich © 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich

“We have restored the initial excitement and the radical achievements of one of the most important private collections in Switzerland,” says Cosandier, who admits she is pleased to be closing her 15 successful years as Hermitage director with this prestigious exhibition.

Sagmeister, prince d’un graphisme art-pop au mudac

Le mudac à Lausanne consacre une importante exposition à Stefan Sagmeister. L’artiste autrichien établi à New York est le plus conceptuel des ad-men et le plus chic des graphistes art-pop. Avec ses mises en scène provocantes et absurdes, un sens de l’humour débridé mais élégant, Sagmeister est passé maître dans le ‘over-statement’ visuel au service de ‘l’under-statement’ commercial.

Sagmeister, c’est le minimalisme érigé en expression artistique, l’imagination au service de l’efficacité.

« Je vends la culture, les corporations, mes amis et moi-même » annonçait-il lors de l’inauguration de son exposition le 6 mars 2011.

« J’étais tenté, à l’occasion de ce projet, de m’éloigner du design. Mais, en somme, c’est quelque chose que j’ai souvent fait, alors j’ai décidé, au contraire, d’entrer de plein pied dans le commercial en ne présentant que des commandes. »

jusqu’au 13 juin 2011, « Encore une exposition sur la promotion et la vente », le titre de la 11ème exposition de la série « carte blanche » du mudac – le musée de design et arts appliqués à Lausanne – explore l’efficacité de l’image au service du message.

« L’impact culturel d’un message m’importe encore plus que son résultat en terme de chiffres d’affaires, » explique Sagmeister.

« Du reste, plus les spécifications (the brief) sont longues, moins le projet sera bon, » précise-t-il.

Stefan Sagmeister, « Singes en Ecosse », 2007 (détail) 6 sculptures gonflables géantes © Stefan Sagmeister. Pendant la journée et pour la durée de l’exposition, un de ces singes explose d’une fenêtre du mudac, à moitié dedans et à moitié dehors.

« Notre mission est de révéler la puissance de la vie, » (the power of life) Sagmeister déclare sans sourcilier, ses lèvres posées dans un immobilisme que ses yeux contredisent.

L’exposition à Lausanne est une retrospective qui retrace l’acheminement d’un créatif touche à tout sans tabous. Il joue avec les mots autant qu’avec les objets. Une chaise réalisée comme un bloc note ondulé, avec des affiches qui s’effeuillent, et une table magnétisée révèlent une imagination hors limites, mais pragmatique, car ces objets, ô surprise, sont merveilleusement utilisables.

L’artiste publiciste s’est d’abord fait un nom dans la musique. Designer attitré de David Byrne, Bryan Eno, Talking Heads, Lou Reed et, occasionnellement, des Rolling Stones, il a trouvé, dès le début de sa carrière, la parfaite parade pour combiner ses deux amours : le design et la musique. “C’était la meilleure façon de rencontrer Bryan Eno, précise Sagmeister, un vrai plaisir pour ce qu’il dit encore plus que pour sa musique.”

Plusieurs exemples de ces collaborations, dont certaines ont été couronnées de Grammy Awards,  figurent dans l’expo.

Issu de la petite ville soporifique autrichienne de Bregenz à l’extrémité est du Lac Constance, à quelques encablures de la Suisse, Sagmeister se dit très attaché à sa ville natale.

A la suite d’études à Vienne, continuées à New York et couronnées par un passage à Hong Kong, il s’est installé de manière définitive dans la Grande Pomme en 1993.

Mais Stefan Sagmeister retourne régulièrement à Bregenz, la ville qui a également donné naissance, en 1997, au Kunsthaus Bregenz (KUB), le légendaire musée de Peter Zumthor. Sous des airs de fausse candeur, Bregenz montre une singulière audace, tout comme Sagmeister.

Affiche réalisée à l’occasion de deux expositions au Japon sur le travail de Sagmesiter. Pendant une semaine, il a ingurgité la somme des produits visibles, son poids passant de 81 à 92 kilos en 8 jours. Stefan Sagmeister, “GGG-DDD Poster”, 2003 © Stefan Sagmeister

 

Se réservant une soupape de compression, il disparaît régulièrement à Bali pour des périodes sabbatiques pendant lesquelles il refuse tout mandat, y compris celui de s’occuper de la première campagne présidentielle d’Obama, comme ce fut le cas. Actuellement là bas, il est venu quelques jours en Suisse à l’occasion du lancement de son exposition à Lausanne et d’une conférence à l’écal, l’école cantonale d’art de Lausanne. Sagmeister explique qu’il s’impose ces arrêts pour retrouver les repères de sa créativité.

La rétrospective lausannoise a la particularité d’être une carte blanche boomerang, où l’artiste concerné offre lui-même carte blanche à des personnes de confiance pour la réalisation d’un projet sur lui-même.

Ainsi, le zurichois Martin Woodtli, ancien collaborateur de Stefan Sagmeister, a été chargé du carton d’invitation, de l’affiche et du (superb) catalogue, alors que le collectif lausannois très en vue Big-Game a réalisé la scénographie de l’exposition.

Mais la personne pivot de cette entreprise, qui sera reprise par le musée des Arts Décoratifs à Paris du 13 octobre 2011 au 19 février 2012, n’est autre que la directrice du mudac de Lausanne, Chantal Prod’Hom, dont on soupçonne que les années auprès de la fondation Benetton, à laquelle a également été associé Sagmeister, ne sont pas complètement étrangères à ce choix.

“Ce qu’il y a de formidable dans le travail de Stefan, dit Chantal Prod’Hom, c’est ce qu’il raconte.”

« L’exposition est plus limpide et précise que si je l’avais élaborée moi-même, » conclut Stefan Sagmesiter en hommage à ses hôtes avant de reprendre l’avion pour Bali.

http://www.sagmeister.com/

Réalisé à l’0ccasion d’une campagne de sensibilisation contre les coupes budgétaires du gouvernement américain, le bus dédoublé qui sillonait les Etats Unis s’est révélé un moyen de communication plus économique et efficace qu’une importante campagne d’affichage d’après son auteur. Stefan Sagmeister, « True Majority », 2004, Bus dédoublé © Stefan Sagmeister

High-spirited dance brings Las Vegas to Lausanne


Je veux bien, copyright Charlotte Walker

Philippe Saire, the Swiss choreographer of international repute, brings his fascination for the seedy glamour and tinsel glitter of Las Vegas to Sevelin theatre in Lausanne. A whimsical plot casts the dancers as bumbling entertainers whose antics never wipe off their wide-eyed smiles. The result is full of theatrical fantasy and unbridled fun.

To say that Philippe Saire’s latest production is dance would not do it justice. “Je veux bien vous croire” (I’d like to believe you) closes a trilogy dedicated to the world of American entertainment by Switzerland’s most versatile choreographer.

The Philippe Saire company, following performances in Brazil and before going to the legendary Joyce Theater in New York in January, is wrapping up its shows on show business at the Sevelin Theatre in Lausanne.

Is this real, we ask ourselves, photo Mario del Curto

Started in 2006, Saire’s “narrative trilogy”, as he calls it,  borrows the codes of razzmatazz show-biz to transform them into a cerebral questioning on the purpose of distraction and escape.

The circus, Broadway musical and magic antics can be taken at face value or bolster your neurons.

The audience is swept into Saire’s shows never really knowing what to expect and that’s part of the game.

“Est-ce que je peux me permettre d’attirer votre attention sur la brièveté de la vie?” (May I please call your attention to the shortness of life) in 2006 was a big affair that thundered across the stage in a collage of wild-fire scenes.

“When I finished creating this show, I felt that I still had a lot to say on the theme of entertainment,” Philippe Saire explains.

The result was “Il faut que je m’absente” (I have to slip out) in 2008, a show that was more tense, with elements of drama holding together the soft-shoe and tap dance numbers. See Swisster review.

“It was such a jubilatory experience to discover the artificial mechanisms that allow audiences to be enraptured,” says Saire.

The latest event is something different altogether. It starts with a six-foot tall white rabbit throwing up on stage. But don’t take fright, he’s only vomiting the pieces of shiny material used for music hall costumes that he had previously stuffed down his throat.

Je veux bien, photo Mario del Curto

“What lies under the surface of the world of entertainment fascinates me even more,” the choreographer says. “Our vital need for entertainment, for escapism, and the touching fragility of the process.”

He is offering us a metaphor. So when the dancers appear on stage not knowing what is expected of them, staring with wide-eyed innocence at the audience, we’re aware of the spoof, but we’re ready to be taken for a ride.

The dancers start to perform by breaking into steps, using the lime lights, disco balls and stage material as props. They make contact with each other, collide, step away, always keeping busy and always entertaining us.

The stage comes alive not in a way that is ordered and predictable, but in joyful anarchy. The dancers become pranksters, appealing to our joyful sympathy.

Music is the cement that holds it all together and it is clear that Saire has the chaos in complete control.

Fabien Ruf, head of the Lausanne cultural department, says that he “was immensely touched by the show. I loved the mix between nostalgia and causticity, between kitsch and emotion.”

Philippe Saire is the rabbit who sheds his wildlife costume to become the aging diva who attempts to rob the limelight back from his dancers.

It would all be a bit ridiculous, except that Saire pours himself into the dance.

On the obsessively repetitive Cucurrucucu Paloma sung by Caetano Veloso he delivers a solo performance half way between beauty and self-irony.

The dancers stand around in disbelief and embarrassment, not knowing what to do, before they start to drag all the props off the stage and attempt to stop the dancer by putting his jacket back on.

“The theatricality of dance comes with the art of disappearing,” Saire says enigmatically but we understand better what he means now.

In the end the dancers join in lamely. The rabbit/diva gets the last word, as if destiny will always get the upper hand.

Je veux bien, Photo Mario Del Curto

The thrilling thing about this show is that it is not dance. At least not the way we expect it. There is a dose of intense theatricality and humour that will appeal to all audiences.

And what we will remember about the dancers is not only the way they move their bodies, but their faces and the huge array of feelings that their expressions communicate.

The Philippe Saire company receives the backing of the Lausanne, Vaud and Pro Helvetia.

 

Philippe Saire, Portrait by Véronique Botteron

Design lab finds creative uses for carbon

Claire Baudrimont presents her carbon inspired glass shapes

 

Exploring the potential of top performance material carbon, star design schools, écal in Lausanne and ENSCI in Paris join forces to combine creativity with functionality. Organized by EPFL-ECAL lab head Nicolas Henchoz, the exhibition Hidden Carbon highlights the successes of the experiment, including the carbon-netted glass vases by Claire Baudrimont.

A joint venture between top design schools, écal (University of art and design Lausanne) and ENSCI (Les Ateliers – Paris Design Institute) comes up with new ideas for the use of carbon, a material that offers the resistance of steel, while being four times lighter.

The seven  projects in the show Hidden Carbon have been selected for their innovative and imaginative uses of carbon.

“The goal of this project is to transform the icon of high technology into a user experience,” explains Nicolas Henchoz, director of the EPFL-ECAL lab, “so that we bring a story, a meaning or emotion into our lives.”

Carbon fibre has been contributing to breaking new records in technological performance in areas as diverse as aeronautics and sport since it was invented 60 years ago.

More recently, Solar Impulse, the plane that aims to go around the world on solar energy only, and Alinghi, the successive giant catamarans that challenge the America’s Cups have been made possible with this material.

“But what we’re looking at,” says Henchoz, “is a new range of developments.” He holds an engineering degree in the science of materials, a field, he observes, in which designers usually lack strong teaching.

Because carbon has such interesting properties, he wanted to allow designers to get their hands on it, although he admits that “it was not easy to bring them together with engineers, because they don’t speak the same language.”

Thirty students piloted by Alexis Georgacopoulos for écal and Jean-François Dingjian for ENSCI – Les Ateliers took up the challenge.

With the assistance of the Laboratory of polymer and composite technology at EPFL and the Suter Swiss composite group in Bern who provided the materials, they were able to experiment with a variety of processes.

Alexis Georgacopoulos, who will become écal’s next director when Pierre Keller retires in July 2011, says that he encouraged the students to “materialize new ideas.”

“I didn’t want them to concentrate on the visual aspect of carbon, but rather to think of integrating it into objects with a different purpose,” he adds.

Carbon can however be difficult to work with as it requires the addition of resins to make carbon fibre (which are toxic) or sandwiching materials to add to its performance properties.

 

The production of several of the prototypes of the selected projects was therefore handed over to “carbon guru” Bertrand Cardis. His company Decision S.A. is behind most of the carbon fibre break-throughs, including  the Solar Impulse and Alinghi ventures.

“A collaboration of this kind is really interesting,” Henchoz observes, “as the limitations of a material can become a new source of creativity for designers.”

“What we are doing here is combining the differences between a scientific and a more artistic approach, rather than attempting to merge them.”

The result is inventive as well as pragmatic: an acoustic amplifier that works without electricity (Pierre Bayol), a mural lamp that uses honeycomb technology for shape and lighting beauty (Raphaëlle Bonamy), a pocket swing that doubles up as a seat that can be improvised wherever there is a tree or beam (Quentin Caille), a table that unfolds like a popup card (Brynjar Sigurdarson).

One of the more spectacular projects, due no doubt to the fact that it is also one of the most aesthetically pleasing, comes out of the dogged inspiration of Claire Baudrimont, who is now in her second and final year of the écal masters programme.

Claire Baudrimont, Transfert, photo Olivier Pasqual – EPFL+ECAL Lab

 

She has used carbon not as the end product, but as a means to obtain gentle textured shapes for blown glass. Using nets of carbon fibre that resist temperatures as high as 1,500 degrees centigrade, she has worked with master glass blower Matteo Gonet to produce vases and light shades that appear to be in a state of semi-liquid.

 

“I wanted to keep an artistic side to my work,” Claire Baudrimont explains, “although never did I imagine that there would be so many variables that I would need to learn to control.”

She worked months on end to produce stands in equally resistant materials and in a variety of shapes to anchor the carbon netting into which the glass is blown.

Materializing ideas into objects, photos courtesy Claire Baudrimont

 

“I drew and drew and drew,” she explains, destroying the idea that improvisation has a part in the development of her project.

“The whole point about design,” Georgacopoulos emphasizes, “is to make objects real.”

Landmark exhibition presents wallpaper as art

Astrid

Astrid Berglund from the Pully Museum before Andy Warhol’s Mao wallpaper, 1973

To celebrate wallpaper not as decoration, but as a new medium for artistic expression, the mudac in Lausanne and Pully museum present a landmark exhibition. Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Jenny Holzer are amongst the 50 international artists and designers whose wallpapers, some of them rarely seen before, are included in the show. The result is elegant, intriguing and not a little provocative.

“Covering the wall. Contemporary wallpapers” – a close collaboration between mudac, the Lausanne museum of contemporary design and applied arts, and the Pully museum – celebrates the artistic revival of wall paper.

Long abandoned in favour of white wall minimalism, wallpaper is now being revitalized and revisited.

Contemporary artists over the past ten years have become interested in a medium that offers the possibility to make a statement in a profoundly poetic manner while finding a way into people’s homes.

Inspired by Warhol’s forays into art multiplication in the 70s (his 1973 Mao wallpaper is in the exhibition), publishers have followed closely behind.

Independent curator Marco Costantini is one of the first art historians to have become interested in the use of wallpaper by contemporary artists and designers. The exhibition he has organized for Lausanne and Pully is a panorama of his research started in 2002 and includes several gems.

Studio Job, Perished, 2005 © Studio Job, one of several wallpapers that use disquieting images to remarkable decorative effect

 

Dan Graham, Two-Way Mirror Hedge Labyrinth For Korea, 2009  © Dan Graham, Courtesy Maharam (New York)

 

Jenny Holzer, Inflammatory Essays, 1979-82 and Sarah Lucas, Tits inspace, 2000
make strong statements of subtle feminism

 

“We are experiencing a revolution in wallpaper,” he says, “as it abandons its decorative purpose to become something more meaningful.”

Working on the preparation of the exhibition for the last three years, Costantini has divided the display into 13 themes, which he has organized to spectacular effect in the two museums.

Topics covered range from consumerism to political statements, but they also include colour-by number decors, effective hybridizations between different patterns and some examples that are boldly ironic or simply humoristic.

Reviewed within the context of the development of contemporary art, the show reflects a clear return to narration by many artists. These are walls that tell stories.

 

Rudolf Herz, Zugzwang, 1995, with the ironic juxtaposition of portraits of Marcel Duchamp and Adolf Hitler taken by same photographer. Custom-edited to fit a room at mudac, the work is exposed for only the third time

 

 

Virgil Marti, Beer Can Library, 1997 (left) and Claude Closky, Sans titre (Supermarché), 1996-99 (right)

It also opens a door to the democratisation of art. Although several of the wallpapers by artists can only be obtained through their galleries, others can be purchased directly through publishers. Wallpapers by artists and Maharam even provide online catalogues.

The work by the designers on the other hand has always been more readily available, although an opening frontier due to the potential of new technologies is producing interesting developments. Wallpapers that heat, absorb sound or respond to Iphones (by Nodesign.net) complete the display at mudac.

Other designers come up with novel ways to hang wallpapers. M/M (Paris), composed of Michael Amzalag and Mathias Augustyniak, consider that their wallpaper should be treated as a poster that is hung by stapling only the upper corners to the wall.

“I was really interested to work together with museums that have fundamentally different vocations,” Costantini told Swisster. The mudac covers design, whereas Pully is essentially dedicated to the fine arts.

“By showing how very contemporary artists and designers are rediscovering the medium, but how wallpapers are dissolving the frontiers between their two practices,” he believes that the joint exhibition acts something like a metaphor.

“Some happy accidents have occurred,” Costantini observes, when, for example, Damien Hirst’s butterfly wallpaper echoes the beauty of the original painting on the wooden beams of the mudac, or a fireplace in Pully interrupts a wallpapered surface that beckons old-fashioned portraits.

He admits that the exhibition is also a tribute to his own grandfather, a house painter whom he often saw papering walls.

 

Brigitte Ziegler, Shooting Wallpaper, 2008, video projection © Brigitte Ziegler
The artist highjacks the pastoral scenes of Toile de Jouy with the interruption of a blasting device like a tank

The two museums where the exhibition takes place have been stripped bare to allow the wallpapers to be plastered directly on the vertical surfaces: the 60 different examples espouse the space and are set out in a way where miraculously none rivals the other.

“Both were originally homes,” says Chantal Prod’Hom, director of mudac, “and this project, although ephemeral, allows them to regain their initial status.”

The fact that the project is purpose-built, custom-tailored and site-specific gives it a natural beauty and elegance, while being eye-arresting and intellectually engaging.

“We decided on this radical approach, accepting the fact that the exhibition cannot travel, since the wallpapers will be ripped off at the end,” which is why, Chantal Prod’Hom explains, the teams from the two museums have produced a milestone catalogue in English and French.

Damien Hirst, Pharmacy Wallpaper, 1997-2004, (c) Hirst Holdings Limited & Damien Hirst (all rights reserved, 2010) / 2010 Prolitteris Zurich

“The project grew out of a common desire to show how wallpaper is positioned at the crossroad of art and design,” says Delphine Rivier, who directs the Pully museum, highlighting the fact that the project was able to grow in size and importance due to an “exceptional partnership” that doubled the surfaces.

She believes that the project is opening a new field of research, as the many art historians who contributed to the catalogue appear to testify.

“But two museums were not enough,” she jests, so they have also teamed up with the Swiss national museum Château de Prangins that is presenting From wall to wallpaper, subtitled ‘The poetry of walls’.

A rich collection of examples from the 16th century to the contemporary are on show until May 1, 2011, with tickets that can be combined with Pully and Lausanne.

“I wasn’t at all convinced by the subject,” Jean-François Thonney, mayor of Pully, said at the opening, “but I’m delighted by the result.”

“It is the role of cultural institutions to lead us to discoveries and this team has surpassed itself,” he said.

A roundtable discussion will take place on Sunday, November 21 at the Pully Museum with the participation of Gill Saunders, Senior curator of prints, Victoria & Albert Museum, London (UK). Entrance and a brunch will be free.

Irving Penn as keen social observer at Lausanne Elysée


Benoîte Lab, Paris, 1950 @ The Irving Penn Foundation

American photographer Irving Penn, whose images of sculpted beauties transformed fashion photography in the 50s and 60s, also documented the ordinary throughout his career. “Small Trades” at the Lausanne Elysée Museum presents vintage prints of simple folk in their professional attire, revealing the deep cultural differences between London, Paris and New York where the pictures were taken.

Organized in collaboration with the Los Angeles J. Paul Getty Museum, the exhibition at the Elysée Museum in Lausanne is a rare example of art serving history.

The portraits made by Irving Penn between fashion shots for Vogue magazine in the middle of the last century capture the essence of a large scope of proletarian professions, many of which were soon to disappear.

The prestigious Elysée museum in Lausanne has selected 106 vintage prints from the large collection of ‘Small Trades’ by Irving Penn owned by the Getty museum and presents them not in chronological order, but by trade such as the chimney sweeps, shoemakers, delivery men or butchers of Paris, London and New York.

“I have seen these photographs any number of times,” says Virginia Heckert, associate curator of the Getty Museum, “but this exhibition makes me appreciate them all over again.”

In hues of silvery gray, people stand upright in their professional dignity against the walls of the stately mansion of the Elysée that have been painted over in a contrasting and enhancing powder pink for the occasion.

Irving Penn (1917-2009) first trained as an artist and graphic designer before being encouraged by the legendary art director of Vogue, Alexander Liberman, to make the photographs himself of the covers he had designed. His elegant hallmark compositions carved the pages into geometrical patterns.


Inving Penn’s British Vogue cover for June 1950 (not in exhibition), source www.vogue.co.uk

He was also known to coax the personalities of his sitters into the frame, from models Lisa Fonssagrives, the Swedish beauty with the 17-inch waist who was to become his wife, to Gisele Bundchen, as well the cultural icons Alberto Giacometti, Truman Capote, Salvador Dali, Duke Ellington, Edith Piaf, Pablo Picasso and Harold Pinter, amongst many others.

The show in Lausanne reveals another side to Penn which Sam Stourdzé, the Elysée’s director, acknowledges will be a discovery to many.

Stourdzé says that Small trades is an equally important part of Penn’s work. He has programmed the exhibition at the same time as one dedicated to Bernd and Hilla Becher who transformed architectural photography with their careful documentation of the vestiges of the industrial revolution, but of buildings, not of people.

“We are launching the season on the theme of the history of photography,” he says.

Small trades offers insight into the organisation of society in the 50s, highlighting the differences between the professions in Paris, London and New York. It also gives an amusing vantage point to national characteristics.

“You get a sense of the unique character of the trades in each of the cities,” Heckert points out, adding that a guessing game to determine the origin of the person pictured can be played.

Irving Penn ‘Small Trades’ in Lausanne: House painters, 1950 @ The Irving Penn Foundation

Irving Penn ‘Small Trades’ in Lausanne: Firefighters, 1950 @ The Irving Penn Foundation

“People in Paris were suspicious and would tend to hide behind their tools to gain confidence,” she explains.

Edmonde Charles-Roux, a young French intellectual and future editor of Vogue France, was assigned to assist Penn in Paris.

She employed the yet unknown Robert Doisneau, as well as the poet, Robert Giraud, better known for his alcohol consumption than for his verse, to “pick” people off the streets for the photo sessions.

It was Giraud who included the contortionists, muscle-builders, cabaret singers (see Benoîte Lab above) and nude models “extending the scope to include the unexpected,” Penn later explained.

Charles-Roux describes in an interview how the sitters at first could not understand why this American would be interested in them.

“But after a week’s work, they suddenly came out of there touched to the quick. All at once they realized that someone was interested in them, in their uniforms, their way of life.”

The British, on the other hand, explains Hackert, would arrive promptly at the sittings impeccably dressed and proud to represent their trades. They had a “formulaic” way of posing, she adds, adopting attitudes expected of their professions.

The most unpredictable were the Americans, she indicates. Because they were being photographed by a “famous photographer”, they were convinced “that they were on the way to Hollywood” and would arrive not in their trades clothes, but in their Sunday best.

While Penn was documenting the archetypes of disappearing trades, he was also recording what he describes as “individuality and occupational pride”, which he believed was “on the wane”.

He was showing, as Heckert, points out, that these “people had a role to play in life”.

Penn chose to extract his sitters from their own environments, as opposed to August Sanders or Eugene Atget, who had inspired him, but who pictured occupations within their context.

He employed the same make-shift studios and half-painted backdrops that he used for fashion goddesses and celebrities to document the men and women in their work apparel or uniforms, holding the tools of their trades. He only worked in natural light coming from the side in order to obtain crispness in the details.

Irving Penn’s makeshift studio as pictured in the Lausanne exhibition

“Taking people away from their natural circumstances and putting them into the studio in front of a camera did not simply isolate them, it transformed them,” Penn explained.

By the mid-60s, Penn decided that a photo on a printed page was “something of a dead end” and became disenchanted with fashion magazines.

He then turned to “the area of manipulation, of control, breakdown, and the reconstruction of the image” by adopting the platinum process of making photographic prints, instead of the classical gelatine silver process.

In the platinum process, the paper first absorbs the light-sensitive emulsion of platinum and palladium salts, before being exposed to a real-size negative under Xenon light. Small trades was one of the first series that Penn revisited to make new prints.

The result, Stourdzé points out, is a higher degree of detail, as well as greater warmth and voluptuousness in the flesh tones. Viewers can appreciate the difference by comparing several prints in both techniques side by side.

“What I call Penn’s American instincts made him go for the essentials,” Alexander Liberman, the Vogue art director said of his protégé. The exhibition in Lausanne is an opportunity to understand what he meant.

Irving Penn ‘Small Trades’ in Lausanne: Chair caner, Paris 1950 @ The Irving Penn Foundation, photo in situ Laird

Design Days expose prototypes, industrial series and raw talent

Kosha chair by Claudio d’Amore

Design ON OFF is an event that from September 23-26 highlights Swiss contemporary design that is fun, brazen, clever and mostly on sale. Renens, a suburb of Lausanne where écal, the university of art and design is located, becomes the hub of a 3-day event that extends to 22 satellite venues from Morges to Lutry and now draws international design celebrities.

Contemporary furniture design has a reputation for being impractical and often outrageous, but Design Days, organized for the past four years in Lausanne by the magazine Espaces Contemporains showcases work by exciting young designers who marry functionality with innovation.

“In the beginning, we were crying in the wilderness,” says Patricia Lunghi, artistic director of Design Days since the event was launched in 2006.

“We were intent on demonstrating that design is not just an industrial product submitted to business rules, but the result of thoughtful research on the use and functionality of an object.”

“The creative process in design is not dissimilar to one in art,” Lunghi maintains.

The design scene in Switzerland has changed profoundly in recent years, she emphasizes, a trend in which Lausanne has played an increasingly important role.

Écal, the university of art and design, spills out world class talent, and mudac, the museum of contemporary design and applied arts, showcases their work.

“These two institutions have become great visiting cards,” she says of design poles that are piloted respectively by charismatic leaders Pierre Keller (who will be succeeded when he retires shortly by one of the current star designers, Alexis Georgacopoulos) and Chantal Prod’Hom.

The choice of Renens, a western suburb of Lausanne, as the base for this year’s Design ON OFF edition is due to a partnership with écal located in a former stockings factory converted by ‘starchitect’ Bernard Tschumi three years ago.

Écal will be organizing a bazaar to sell off prototypes created by its students since 1996 for famous design houses, including Serralunga, B&B Italia and Eternit AG. This may be a fabulous opportunity to pick up a rare piece for a bargain at galerie ELAC, from 1pm to 9pm on all three days.

Look out for fun purchases at the écal bazaar

“Design ON OFF is an event that ties together the different aspects of design today,” Lunghi explains.

“We work with a large constellation of showroom partners that present well-known brands.”

A circuit stretching from Morges to Lutry that also stops at all the showrooms in Lausanne will be connected by a free shuttle bus.

Highlights include exhibitions organized especially for the Design Days. Moyard in Morges has invited 14 contemporary artists and designers to occupy 2,000 square metres, including INCHfurniture, that contributed to the Swiss pavilion at the Shanghai universal exhibit.

batiplusBatiplus in Lutry, the ultimate chair specialist present the new ultimate Philippe Starck chair for Kartell. The impish French designer has fused the styles of ultimate chair icons, Serie 7 by Arne Jacobsen, the Tulip Armchair by Eero Saarinen and the Eiffel Chair by Charles Eames to produce the Masters, a feat of technology that is more comfortable than it looks (see right).

Espace Saint François (ESF), at the heart of Lausanne, currently hosts an exhibition of seven young designers that is wonderfully playful, including works by Lifegoods, a favourite of this reviewer.

“Our work is also to bring the public’s attention to the work of bright new designers,” Lunghi continues.

At the heart of Renens, only a stone’s throw from écal, the town ballroom, cum showroom (salle de spectacle) becomes the stage of an exhibition curated by Lunghi in a scenography by Adrien Rovero.

Recent works by 20 confirmed or rising stars will give an instant idea of the remarkable vitality of design in Switzerland today.

Raquel Vega designs a multiple-purpose pouf for Berlin-go

Berlin-Go has designed a beanbag that is cleverly structured so as not to collapse in an amorphous and annoying heap (see above).

Francis Chabloz comes up with the most extraordinary shapes to objects that never lose their initial function. His Shark ceiling lamp, that he says was inspired by ‘Jaws’, emits a gentle light that is becoming in all circumstances (see below).

Francis Chabloz deisgns his shark light for Labelobjet

Claudio d’Amore, who founded the successful Cosanova firm that is active in luxury goods, including high-end watches, has taken a huge leap with his Kosha chair (pictured in lead to article).

Boris Dennler is the guy behind Boris Lab whose imagination produces objects pulled out of recycled materials, like his chair constructed from old radiators.

Design commissioned by Pfister, including Weesen chair by Andreas Bechtiger, La Tour-de-Peilz table by Sibylle Stoeckli and Le Landeron lamps by atelier oï

Not skipping a beat, one of Switzerland’s largest furniture stores has created Atelier Pfister that commissioned many of the young Swiss designers who are stepping into the big league (see complete programme).

Several of the commissioned works that have now been industrially produced and put on sale are present in Renens, including by louise blanche, aka Sibylle Stoeckli and Nicolas Lemoigne, names to look out for as their smart and elegant furniture pieces are the answer to a lot of space problems.

Two prestigious conferences complete the programme:

Alfredo Alessi, CEO of the eponymous firm, will be one of the star attractions of the event, not least because he is a very entertaining speaker, as well as leader of one of the most successful design companies of all times.

He will give a talk on Friday, September 24 on the theme of ‘Architects and the design of objects’ at Archizoom, located at EPFL, the Swiss federal institute of technology at Dorigny.

Écal will host a conference by Lebanese design darlings Bokja Design (Hoda Baroudi & Maria Hibri) – currently promoted in upmarket Globus stores throughout Switzerland – Karen Chekerdjian and Nada Debs. Saturday, September 25 at 5pm.

The loud colours and oriental-baroque designs of Bojka make a refreshing change in the world of interior design today.

“Many designers work at the frontier of design and art,” Patricia Lunghi repeats. “We want to make that zone visible.”

See complete programme.

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