Mon – Sun 11:00 AM – 11:00 PM, Olympic Games
Mon – Wed 2:00 PM – 10:00 PM / Thu – Sun 11:00 AM – 10:00 PM, Paralympic Games
Two installations by Geneva-based artists will be displayed at the Maison Suisse. This "Carte Blanche", proposed by the Republic and Canton of Geneva in collaboration with Presence Switzerland, will be exhibited permanently throughout the duration of the event.
Laure Marville primarily expresses herself through linocut on fabric or paper and presents a series of double-sided canvases playing on the ambivalence between a reference to a public and powerful object, the flag, and an evocation of a domestic and intimate universe.
As for Thomas Liu Le Lann, he will create a sports-themed video installation, "GYM,", featuring a group of participants with limited technical and physical skills, oscillating between improvisation and editing inspired by sports television language.
About the artist Laure Marville (b. 1990, Lausanne) and her art work at the Maison Suisse
Laure Marville lives and works in Genève.
« Feux Follets », 2024
Seven textile hangings of varying dimensions
Linocut, dyeing, stitching on cotton
Laure Marville, a Lausanne-based artist, trained at the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD), expresses her artistic commitment primarily through her choice of techniques and materials, which then manifest in the forms and content of her work. In our frenetic consumer society that demands ever-increasing and faster production, Marville deliberately embraces slowness, championing handmade and artisanal techniques. This resistance to economic imperatives, however, is not the sole foundation of her artistic stance. By working primarily with textiles, Marville shifts practices long considered feminine from the domestic to the public sphere, challenging the power structures that have long governed society and the arts. Like other women artists in recent decades, she employs textiles as a medium for feminist protest, exposing the sexism inherent in the art world and its market. In doing so, she also dismantles traditional hierarchies between fine and applied arts, and between « high » and popular art. Marville's approach incorporates diverse references, which she deconstructs and interweaves, imbuing her works with multiple layers of interpretation. Complexity also characterises her working method, as she overlays different techniques, seamlessly blending figurative elements, abstract motifs and text.
In « Feux Follets », the seven textile hangings created for the Swiss representation at the 2024 Olympic Games, Marville explores imagery of power. The flag, symbolising the nation, is a nod to the Maison Suisse where the works are installed – but she transforms the stark symbolism of national emblems into nuanced, emotive images. She also examines fireworks, historically used to showcase masculine strength and wealth for propaganda purposes, echoing the Olympic Games' ceremonial nature and accompanying celebrations. Marville drew inspiration from 16th, 17th and 18th-century woodcuts depicting fires organised by the French court during royal festivities for public dissemination.
Marville executes every aspect of the work by hand. She folds, knots and dyes reclaimed natural cotton in successive baths of different inks, or or uses a brush to paint colours directly onto the cloth. After drying, she hand-prints the fabric using linocut stamps, sometimes on top in the traditional method, sometimes in reverse with the plate underneath, producing ethereal impressions. These processes create backgrounds that Marville then cuts up and reassembles like a patchwork quilt. Finally, she enriches these layers with texts, freely inspired by two French-speaking Swiss authors dear to her, Corinna Bille and Alice Rivaz, poetically exploring Swiss identity and women's roles.
About the artist Thomas Liu Le Lann (b. 1994, Geneva) and his art work at the Maison Suisse
Thomas Liu Le Lann lives and works in Geneva.
« GYM », 2024
22’
HD video, colour, loop
Featuring: Alfredo Aceto, Grandee Dorji, Théa Giglio, Thomas Liu Le Lann, Anne Minazio, Arttu Palmio and Clara Roumégoux
Photography by: Thomas Liu Le Lann, Alfredo Aceto, Grandee Dorji, Clara Roumégoux
Choreographic development: Arttu Palmio
Editing: Hodei Berasategui
Calibration: Lény Lecointre
Set photography: Théa Giglio
Thomas Liu Le Lann is a multidisciplinary artist who works with video, sculpture and installations. He trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Nantes and then at the Geneva University of Art and Design (HEAD). He quickly made a name for himself in the contemporary art world, staging numerous solo and group exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad as well as co-founding Cherish, an artist-run space in Geneva.
In a body of work spanning several mediums, there are a number of constants throughout – notably the strong autobiographical focus and unmistakable sensuality. The artist's unpublished writings, a daily ritual, are used as both a personal record and a source of inspiration for future work. All of Liu Le Lann's work is autofiction, with extended forays into other forms of fiction and poetry.
Liu Le Lann's materials are chosen for their sensory qualities. He explains that his performance background encouraged him to use textiles in his early sculptural work to retain a focus on the language of the human body, while a number of his works also make use of blown glass. The choice of such delicate and fragile materials is sometimes at odds with the subject matter, expressing forms of failure that frequently call masculinity into question.
Liu Le Lann has created a 22-minute video loop for the Maison Suisse entitled « Gym ». The artist mischievously presents the figure of the amateur as a stark contrast to the professionalism and performances expected of athletes in the Olympics. The video consists of a series of scenes featuring characters in a gym, alternating between painterly shots of the pastel-blue hall and sculptural depictions of fitness rings hanging in the air. The fact that the characters are dressed in professional attire completely unsuited to sport hampers their efforts and calls into question the relationship between clothing and established conventions. They are preparing to learn badminton, a sport chosen for its generic and gender-neutral nature.
This preparatory process involves meditation, reiki, lymphatic drainage massage and contact improvisation. The characters' unconventional movements were choreographed by Arttu Palmio, and allowed Liu Le Lann to reconnect with his roots in dance. The video was filmed in a single day, and captures the performers' bodies in moments of rest, tiredness, boredom and lasciviousness, much like the pliable « soft heroes » dolls the artist has used in his work since 2018. All of the footage was filmed on iPhones, with textures, materials and colours enhanced afterwards to create an aesthetic quite distinct from that of sports broadcasts. The video editing nonetheless draws inspiration from this genre of reporting in its use of split screens to present several different perspectives. It is also broadcast on a giant LCD screen in an allusion to outdoor sports screenings.
The film thus wittily deconstructs sports as a genre in order to recast it in a less heroic yet more sensitive light.
The artworks were commissioned and supported by the Republic and canton of Geneva, in collaboration with Presence Switzerland, for the Maison Suisse in Paris during the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Diane Daval, Head of the Geneva Cantonal Contemporary Art Fund