The rich, subtle and complex relationship between art and music has influenced the history of Geneva’s School of Art, as if in echo to the significant role both have played, and still play on the Swiss art scene, especially in Western Switzerland. Designed for the ten-year anniversary of HEAD – Genève, this new episode of Dix / Zehn / Dieci explores the concept of immersion inherent to any listening experience. Far from a general overview, the exhibition focuses on the work of seven artists from different generations and backgrounds, who all studied at the school and for whom sound takes on particular significance. Imagined as an atmosphere, composed with the help of the artists and their works, the project also includes a programme of meetings that will bring the place to life by transforming it, albeit temporarily, into a sound box. 

In 1984, Christian Marclay, former student between 1975 and 1977 at the Ecole supérieure d’art visuel (the former HEAD – Genève), produced, as a work of art, a compilation of Hawaiian music for Palud No. 1 Art Space in Lausanne. This piece, now lost but recreated with the help of the artist for the exhibition, impressed another artist who was then 20 years old and for whom music would play a major part for his work and his everyday life too: Francis Baudevin, who will present an original series of photos within the exhibition. The act of listening also permeates, differently but just as deeply, Pierre Vadi’s work. The silence that pervades his work paradoxically and poetically attests to this immersion into the very essence of sound. Although she has regularly photographed and filmed music, Emmanuelle Antille has chosen to present a single picture, silent, enigmatic, that refers to a type of inner world. 

The strange material quality of Marta Riniker-Radich’s works, between the fluidity of the digital images she exhibits such as still videos and the density of her series of resin-made earplugs, are like mental images of sound. They resonate in a unique way with the video work of Marion Goix, who takes as her starting point the ear worm phenomenon, known to all, i.e. when a song or a melody gets stuck in your mind for an indefinite period of time. Finally, Mazyar Zarandar’s installation, a sort of giant loudspeaker, offers a unique sonic experience, allowing visitors into the actual work, and thereby into a moving composition, created from ambient sounds from the inside. 

The exhibition will be brought to life thanks to a specific programme at La Nuit des Bains, on Thursday 23 March, during the whole evening.