MASILugano Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana - 2019

Julian Charrière

Towards No Earthly Pole

27.10.2019-14.03.2020

Curated by Francesca Benini

A project in collaboration with Aargauer Kunsthaus

The artist travels to very remote regions of the planet with a strong geopolitical identity –volcanoes, glaciers, radioactive sites – and uses unconventional methods and materials in situ to investigate the tensions and elemental links that exist between human civilisation and the landscapes it inhabits.
The MASI exhibition scenography is designed as a diorama. With a video projection at its core, Charrière has created an installation that transforms the entire exhibition space into an environmental setting reflecting the central subjects and themes of his work. The artist’s aim is to intensify the visitor’s involvement by means of a sensory experience as well as the interactivity between the observer and represented landscape. New works produced by the artist specifically for this MASI exhibition are displayed alongside reinterpretations of previous works in the environmental installation. He has included local subjects and natural resources in his research, which he has developed with Ticinese craftsmen.

LAC venue
Piazza Bernardino Luini 6, 6900 Lugano

Virtual Tour

Biography

Born in Morges (Switzerland) in 1987, Julian Charrière lives and works in Berlin. In 2011 he studied at the Institut für Raumexperimente (Institute for Spatial Experimentation) where he was taught by Olafur Eliasson. Charrière has exhibited both independently and as a member of the Berlin collective Das Numen in museums and institutions around the world, including the Parasol Unit Foundation for Art in London (UK); Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne (Switzerland); Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris (France); Palais du Tokyo in Paris (France); Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin (Germany); Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna (Austria); Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin (Germany); Reykjavik Art Museum in Iceland; Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo (Japan); the Kochi-Muziris Biennial in India; the 12th Biennale de Lyon (France); the 57th Venice Biennale (Italy). His first solo exhibition in an Italian institution (All We Ever Wanted Was Everything and Everywhere) is currently being held at the MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna. Julian Charrière has won many important prizes, including the Kiefer Hablitzel Award during the Swiss Art Awards of 2013 and 2015, and the Kaiserring Stipendium für junge Kunst in 2016.