The City Hall as Artroom

In September 2021, Zurzach City Hall opened its doors to contemporary art and invited painter and sculptor Juliet Vles to exhibit ten of her large-format wall sculptures there. Presenting high-profile artwork in public spaces is always challenging. It introduces a new and unfamiliar atmosphere in an everydays working place and can easily be perceived as deranging. Vles' abstract, geometrically constructed works however perfectly integrate the bright, spacious interior design of the City Hall surrounding the central marble staircase, and seem very much at home in their unaccustomed setting.

Juliet Vles is a European artist, born in Rotterdam in 1950 and raised in Switzerland. Although primarily known as an abstract painter and sculptor, whose wall sculptures are mainly found in arte povera and minimal art collections, Vles also uses other plastic forms of expression such as collage, digital art, and installation for her artistic work. Her works have been shown in countless exhibitions at home and abroad; in 2016, she represented Switzerland at Consul Art at the Musée de l'Artisanat et des Métiers d'Art (MAMA) in Marseille.

At Flecken, Vles presents four pictures from the “Krypta” series: three-dimensional wooden constructions covered with subtle paintings, writing, and collages, which form a painterly counterbalance to the often architectural forms of the support. The exhibition is rounded off by six wall sculptures from the glassworks cycle, in which glass and plexiglas are also used as working materials.

The exhibition will be shown in the City Hall from September 2021 and during the whole year of 2022.

The Art of Ambassadors 

Consul'Art is a major international art exhibition representing all countries that have an embassy in Marseille. The artists are selected by their respective consulates to represent their countries at the exhibition. With 69 consulates on its territory, Marseille ranks second only to Paris in terms of French diplomacy. The scope and appeal of the exhibition is correspondingly large. Ninety works are presented to the public: paintings, sculptures, photographs, but also weavings, ceramics, lighting fixtures, and inlays. Each artist interprets the culture of their home country according to their own ideas. While some works draw on traditional models, others tend toward a more visionary or symbolic interpretation. 

For the fourth consecutive year, the exhibition is being held in the historic halls of the Musée d'Art et d'Artisanat (MAMA), whose large rooms offer space for a wide range of contemporary art in a variety of styles and media. Careful curation and documentation complement the tactile experience of the artworks and allow viewers to engage with the culture of each country beyond the duration of the exhibition.

Lâminae - layers of the Soul

In the center of the village of Monsempron, next to Saint-Géraud Church, the Château Prieural keeps vigil on the Valley of Lot. The site is often described as intriguing and enchanting, with its crypt considered by archaeologists to be one of the most beautiful in the diocese of Agen.  Priory and  outbuildings were restored in a very minimal way so as to preserve their original magic.

This summer, the ancient walls of the Château Prieural hosts the bold and thought-provoking paintings and wallsculptures of Juliet Vles, a French-Swiss artist residing in Gascogne and whose abstract relief work is named after the laminae, the layers of the cerebral cortex.

Anyone who has followed Juliet Vles' artistic development over the past fifteen years will be familiar with her concept of the pictural web. Visiting an exhibition by this artist means embarking on a journey that combines numerous perspectives of a single motif  -  not in a simple causal relationship, but in a spider web-like system of free association, which requires a certain mental flexibility on the part of the viewer.

The murals from the Lâminae series consist of three-dimensional, relief-like constructions, half image, half sculpture, whose interlocking elements evoke the twists and overlaps of the cortex. A subtle work of painting, writing, and collage covers the wooden framework and forms a painterly counterbalance to the geometric, almost architectural forms of the support, encouraging a literal reading of the images. 

The aim is not to analyze, but to create an imago that can be intuitively grasped by the viewer. The intention is therefore not to define an artistic work by its scientific theme, but to create a poetic alternative to rational analysis  -  just as the laminae, the layers of the cortex, are transformed by the addition of a simple accent circonflexe into lâminae, the layers of the soul.                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Leon Taveling,"Hirngespinste" (extract)                                                                                                             

On freedom of thought and expression

One of the most iconic castles in the heart of the Gascogne, the Château de Lavardens, was built in the 12^th century as the stronghold of the Counts of Armagnac. Restored in the 17^th century, it was classified as a Historic Monument and is today an art center, hosting major cultural events.

The exhibition «Katharoi» by Juliet Vles, shown this summer in all the rooms and caves of the castle, is exceptional in that it is conceived by the artist in collaboration with Amnesty International. Its theme is the genocide of the Cathares, a religious sect living in the South of France, by the French king and his catholic counsellors in the 14th century. While this gruesome event plays an important part in the local chronicles of the Gascogne, the suppression and eradication of religious minorities is at the same time an universal theme in human history, and one that particularily occupies the international sections of Amnesty.

The artistic trail leads through the many rooms of the castle, starting in the great central hall with large, abstract paintings, symbolizing the spiritual beauty of faith. This spirit is retained in the following rooms, but the atmosphere gets slowly more threatening as the cruelty and intolerance of religious fanatisme starts showing through. Descending to the caves, the visitor is then confronted with the full horrors of religious extremism, scenes of death and torture alternating with black satire. This thought-provoking journey through the beauty and corruption of religious faith, although it has already provoked some controversy before the exhibition even started, is a challenging experience for every artlover who expects an exhibition to be more than simply nice and entertaining.

Our sincere thanks to AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL for their precious collaboration and for remembering us that religious extremism and genocide are, unfortunately, not only things of the past...

Culture and agriculture

The arcos project (art contemporain sud-ouest) is an informal collective of artists, collectors, and art lovers, living in the South-West of France, that arose from a shared desire to promote the visual arts in the region and make them more accessible to audiences outside urban centers.

With the exhibition «Bât'Image», held in a former farmhouse called «Le Bâtiment» in the middle of the Gers countryside, the group presents fifteen international artists who live and work locally. While observing a strict artistic quality in the selection of the works presented, the exhibition is «regional» in that it rejects sterile elitism and presents itself as complementary to, rather than in contradiction with, its rural environment.                                               

The generous support of the villagers and the local council of St. Paul de Baïse, as well as the intervention of Bertrand Bortoloni, who creates land art-style signs with his tractor, build a bridge between culture and agriculture.

For more information about the exhibition and the participating artists, please view the arcos archives (button top left)

                                                                            The Glass Trap                                                                                     (l'Improvisation de Saint Jean)

The installation «l’Improvisation de Saint Jean» was conceived for the exhibition Bât’Image at St.Paul de Baïse and really was an improvisation, as the artist initially designated to the place was obliged to give forfeit one day before the vernissage, on the 24^th of june 2000, date dedicated to St.John.

The sculpture consists of a 5 metres high structure of oak beams from which a very large glass panel is suspended, that captures and mirrors the surrounding environment – at once artwork and chronicler of the passing time. The huge glass panel reflects the hours of the day: the dew at dawn melting at the first sun rays giving place to matitunal projections of the environing buildings and vegetation. Following the progress of the sun, it captures the incandescent light at noon and the soft and filigrane design of the evening sun.

The glass becomes receptacle of the surrounding world, transforming it according to physical law and returning images varying from photographical reproduction to pure abstraction.

(Judith Hoffmann «Travaux sur Transparence»)

traversales

The arcos project (art contemporain sud-ouest) is an informal collective of artists, collectors, and art lovers, living in the South-West of France, that arose from a shared desire to promote the visual arts in the region and make them more accessible to audiences outside urban centers. In 2021 and 2022, in collaboration with two traditional Gascon towns, Nérac and Lectoure, arcos organized two large exhibitions of contemporary art, the participating artists installing their works throughout the cities according to the traversales concept.

In equestrian dressage, the diagonal line that crosses the entire riding arena is called «traversal». The exhibition adopts its symboliusm.

traversales across different fields of contemporary art: from lyrical abstraction to concrete art, from individual mythology to scenography, from conceptual art to photography, many different forms of visual expression find their place here.

traversales across borders: French, English, Spanish, Dutch, Belgian, Swiss - artists from all over Europe, all residing in Gascony, have come together to signal the region's openness to the world.

traversales across time: by opening its historic sites to contemporary art, Gascony spans the centuries, connecting the culture of its past with current creativity.

Finally, traversales across the city: for a few weeks in the summer, the entire old town is transformed by numerous works of contemporary art.

For more information about the exhibitions and the participating artists please view "arcos archives" (button top left)

Myopic Mastermind

The «transCerebral» series is the only one of my collected works that has never been exhibited in a gallery. Neither gallerists, nor curators, nor art magazines, nor other publications have ever been willing to engage with this topic. The reason systematically given for the rejection was that the subject matter was «too demanding» for their respective target audience – which, given the relative banality of my theses, may seem strange at first glance. But I assume that the lack of understanding is not so much intellectually based, but rather an expression of my fellow humans' deep-rooted aversion to questioning their self-image as rational and auto-determined beings.

As a result, my brainscapes have been touring universities and neurological institutes for ten years, where the fear of contact is obviously lower. But even in the higher echelons of neurology, there has been no consistent engagement with the topic – even though my vision of the «Myopic Mastermind» has now been overtaken by reality, and people like Elon Musk and his technopathic buddies could well serve as evidence for the accuracy of my analysis.

It is to be hoped that the need for a neurologically (or more broadly biologically) based sociology will eventually gain acceptance in academic circles.

Provided, that is, that humanity has not wiped itself out first – since we have the technical knowledge to construct any amount of lethal weapons, but at the same time lack the equivalent evolutionary maturity to keep our murderous instincts under control….