When my daughter seemed on the pink-violet-gray gradient of the sky this morning, she stated, “The sky is scrumptious as we speak”—as if it had been a second so distinctive that one may wish to devour it. The sunshine and shade spectrum of landscapes is a wondrous object of notion that has additionally been a topic of portray for hundreds of years. In 1444, Konrad Witz painted “Der wunderbare Fischzug” (The Miraculous Draught of Fish), a biblical scene from the New Testomony.The artist transposes the story of fishermen going out to fish within the Sea of Tiberias on the behest of Jesus and returning with a full boat to Lake Geneva. Whereas the meticulously painted protagonists of the story take heart stage within the foreground of the panel, the unmistakable panorama of Geneva is seen within the center floor and a sky pierced by clouds within the background. The depiction of this actual panorama turns into a place to begin for a doable artwork historical past of panorama portray; a historical past of the eager for a topic that turns into an typically kitschy motif, a pleasure and typically a vice of artwork. Nevertheless, this historical past of the style additionally opens up a conception of panorama that’s finally solely made by way of a picture and its illustration that’s layered over actuality. Very near Witz’s panorama, Marcel Duchamp photographed the unknown waterfall of Le Forestay throughout a keep in Switzerland within the Nineteen Forties, turning his gaze away from the picturesque lake that had been depicted for hundreds of years. The picture of the waterfall turns into a part of the diorama of his enigmatic work “Étant Donnés” and serves as a reference for Nicolas Get together’s work Waterfall (2024) on this exhibition.
Following within the footsteps of Marcel Duchamp’s gaze, Caroline Bachmann finds her creative perspective on her on a regular basis environment and the lake, seen each as an actual panorama and repeatedly as an aesthetic occasion—at first in collaboration with Stefan Banz for the conceptual picture sequence “What Duchamp Deserted for the Waterfall.” The artist later continues the routine stock of sunshine and climate in work that concentrate on the view from Cully over Lake Geneva and the alternative Rhône Valley, from which Alpine peaks stand up. Early within the morning, when the day breaks, Caroline Bachmann observes the panorama from the window of her residence as a part of her day by day routine. A panorama that, as Marcel Duchamp wrote in a letter throughout his go to to Switzerland, is at all times slipping into a brand new gown. With a pencil sketch, the artist captures the second like a musical partition. She notes the sunshine and climate scenario with a number of key phrases. As a steady foundation for her studio observe, typically over many months, Caroline Bachmann paints indifferent, psychedelic landscapes primarily based on these sketches and her reminiscence of the scene’s explicit temper.The frames painted round these scenes—a reference to the work of the principally forgotten American painter Louis Michel Eilshemius—illustrate how we glance and that we as viewers are at all times in an ambivalent relationship to what we see. In a peculiar method, these quotes from artwork historical past convey the pictures into the current: a framed method of seeing by way of the framing of the display, the black fringe of the mobile phone, which permits the picture and its expertise to merge seamlessly; or our view of a panorama by way of the practice, airplane or automobile home windows.
On a mauve background, we discover these photos, whose titles minimally describe simply what
we see (e.g. “Soleil caché nuage orangé” or “Hidden solar orange cloud”) within the firm of Nicolas Get together’s Landscapes 2024—right here, too, the titles are a sober description of the content material – which have the identical panorama of Lake Geneva as their motif. The reflective floor of the lake, the towering mountain massif and a slim strip of sky kind the repetitive composition of the scene, which is bathed in glistening gentle. Rising up just some kilometers from Caroline Bachmann’s present residence, this panorama was the place of Nicolas Get together’s childhood and his first encounters with portray. The artist finds his personal environment within the impressionist panorama work of François Bocion from Lausanne and, after all, within the works of Ferdinand Hodler and Félix Valloton, to which the artist typically refers.The landscapes that Nicolas Get together creates in gentle pastel are primarily based on modern pictures and are oriented in direction of actuality. Components such because the silhouettes of mountain peaks are individualized in such a method that they’re clearly recognizable. They present what we see in pictures, in reminiscence; however additionally they present how our imaginative and prescient is formed by (generic) photos and a particular historical past of the portray of this lake by way of the artist’s tried and examined methodology of sampling through the use of stylistic set items from the historical past of portray. We acknowledge not solely the panorama, but in addition photos and stylistic parts from artwork historical past which have integrated the identical motif.
The works of Caroline Bachmann and Nicolas Get together inevitably draw their motifs from the particular (conceptual) historical past of Swiss panorama portray, starting with artists who traveled by way of the Swiss Alps within the 18th and nineteenth centuries to create Alpine views; vacationer photos reminiscent of these in the beginning of Ferdinand Hodler’s oeuvre, by way of to the symbolist (dream) landscapes of the twentieth century. In distinction to a protracted custom of panorama portray, their strategy to the motif is characterised by the emptying of figuration and any human hint and the related lack of the human scale and temporality of panorama. What’s painted, even when the true panorama is recognizable within the form of the mountains, now not corresponds to the precise topic, to what’s seen, however displays an interior picture, an thought nourished by reminiscence, historical past and fiction. Much like Marcel Duchamp’s work, the work don’t operate as photos of the true, however as portals—as by way of Marcel Duchamp’s two peepholes, by way of which the surreal panorama with the waterfall within the background may be seen. As an alternative of by way of a wood door, we glance by way of the frames on the photos, that are at all times a sum of images. They freeze time – the current is inscribed and captured—whereas on the similar time evading any temporality.
There’s a long-standing trade and customary creative pursuits between Caroline Bachmann and Nicolas Get together. Each have repeatedly experimented with varied collaborative types of creative manufacturing of their creative observe. For “Tribute to a Lake,” they selected not solely the identical topic but in addition an an identical sq. picture format. The conceptual repetition of the identical topic is a tribute to the lake of their childhood, their on a regular basis life and the motif of portray.
—Judith Welter
at Galerie Gregor Staiger, Zurich
till March 29, 2025
