ACCELERATION in Switzerland ［May 13 - June 30, 2007］

Accélération will gather about thirty Swiss and international artists whose works meet up the topic of acceleration in a time of globalization. The matter will not be to focus too heavily on the phenomenon of speed, comprehended as a motion of objects in a determined space, but to grasp, through works, what makes the topicality of the subjective sensation of acceleration in our society. Acceleration of glimpsed images, of passing information, of experienced situations, of the number of manipulated objects, which fit in fine in the acceleration of obsolescence.



In the Ancienne halle du Karting in Serrières, the acceleration will turn into a very demonstrative way. A video will stage a cube composed of hundred thousands pieces of sugar (Kader Attia) which gradually melts, absorbed by a liquid – petrol – symbol of a certain state of nowadays world. A wall painting (Karim Noureldin) will display her scattered rhythm in the space, which will thus be simultaneously underlined and redefined. A cycle of photographs (Patrick Weidmann) will offer the human eye the show of luxurious objects in a perfect design, but meant to a quick obsolescence.




A film (Tobias Bernstrup) will introduce the reconstruction of Shanghai skyline – a city continuously mutating– in the shape of a very realistic model supplied with a threatening creature. The design, as a formal repertoire in a continuous reinterpretation of its origins, will query also several works of a second discourse.



At CAN, the acceleration will turn into a more meditative way. Several huge Christ made of bronze (Will Delvoye) stretching in order to form circles will suggest an allegory of the need to turn back to oneself, sensed today as an answer to the daily alienation. A vast luminous box beam (Henrik Plenge Jakobsen) will highlight a famous sentence by Democritus. Or, additionally, a vast installation (Martin Widmer) will enable the viewer to confide his/her intimacy to a machine looking like a high-tech tomb.