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ENCORE! THE POWER OF REPETITION

Museums of the Canton of Valais – Tibor Varga International Music Festival – Summer 2001

Ancien Pénitencier, Sion

The Museums of the Canton of Valais, in partnership with the Tibor Varga Festival and its principal guest artist pianist and conductor Christian Zacharias, are presenting a major exhibition from June to September 2001 on the theme of repetition. In the impressive surroundings of a recently renovated former prison – its repetitive architectural design seemingly mirroring the art on display – visitors will discover a series of contemporary works (mostly selected by Zacharias himself) at once richly diverse in form and rigorous in conception.  The radical approach taken by the artists is based on a precise yet personal analysis of human nature, of man’s intimate relationship with the passage of time and the recurring notion that all things are ever and irremediably in motion. The exhibition focuses on the need for, and the violence and power of, repetition – be it of a gesture, a word, an image or a form. It is not about accumulation or multiplication, about variation on a single theme, or about replication or reproduction of identical copies, but about repetition as an integral part of the creative process. The exhibition will feature not only a comprehensive collection of works by contemporary artists (Roman Opalka, On Kawara, Hanne Darboven, Andy Warhol, Karl Bohrmann, Peter Dreher, Andreas M. Kaufmann, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Anne Blanchet and Olivier Estoppey), but also a group of Piranesi’s Prisons etchings from the Print Room of the Geneva Museum of Art and History and a number of Art Brut works by Hans Kruesi, Marco Raugei and Théo on loan from Lausanne’s Art Brut Museum. Works held by the Sion Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts, and in particular recent acquisitions (Gianfredo Camesi, Gottfried Tritten, Olivier Saudan and Equipo 57), will be on view as well. Numerous concerts related to the theme of repetition will be held on the exhibition site. Nicolas Raboud Organiser of the exhibition

Christian Zacharias ou l'obsession de la répétition.

Le Temps
Article de Julian Sykes

Le Courrier
Article de Rachel Haller et de Florence Marguerat

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24 Heures
Wednesday 17 January 2001

Extracts from an interview by Françoise Jaunin:
 

Christian Zacharias – lover of fine arts

“Seeing the world through the eyes of modern artists inspires me”

The resident conductor of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra is a keen art collector. And surprisingly enough, this much sought-after Mozartean is a fan of contemporary creation.

- Christian Zacharias, with your busy schedule as a conductor and soloist, how do you find the time to cultivate another passion?
Admittedly, it’s not always easy. But I visit galleries whenever I can. And when I’m travelling, I make a point of trying to track down those that interest me (…). The appealing thing about the visual arts is that you very soon discover whether you want to look a little closer or not. Music, on the other hand, is intrinsically linked to the passage of time and does not allow you to make such swift choices. Nowadays, as far as I’m concerned, the problem is finding the time for music; I really should take a year off and listen to more contemporary composers… (…).

- What sort of a collector are you, what are the works that form part of your life?
My house near Cologne is becoming too small. As soon as I find myself a home in Lausanne, there will be more walls to fill… But above all I don’t want to be an art collector in the literal sense, methodically seeking and obsessed by what he hasn’t got. Three or four carefully chosen works by each artist are all you need to have a good insight into his or her world. The artists that interest me most are those that have a realm of their own, a personal and unusual outlook on life – in other words, individualists who cannot be labelled as belonging to certain schools or following certain trends. And that includes those that lie a little off the beaten track, like Art Brut artists. The oldest work I own is a 1937 gouache by Paul Klee, a kind of ideogram he painted when he felt that death was drawing near. I’m extremely fond of Meret Openheim and Louise Bourgeois, and Opalka fascinates me. I also have a passion for the Art Brut artist Bill Traylor…

- Are there any Swiss among your favourites?
Louis Soutter is a genius, and I like the works of Fischli and Weiss from Zurich (…).

- I hear you’re planning an exhibition in the canton of Valais?
Yes, indeed. I often help gallery director, curator or artist friends of mine to put on exhibitions. Art historian Nicolas Raboud and I are preparing an exhibition on a theme that has long fascinated me: compulsive repetition. The notion of compulsive repetition is inherent in musical performance and lies at the heart of the work of certain visual artists as well, such as the Japanese On Kawara, Roman Opalka from Poland, the German Peter Dreher and the young video artist Andreas Kaufmann. We shall also be featuring Art Brut artists who are often repetitive and obsessive in their approach. And the exhibition should open with the famous Piranesi Prisons etchings (…).