Artgenève 2022: Artwork Selections
Conceived as a 'human-sized salon d'art', artgenève offers a more intimate fair experience than larger platforms in the region such as Art Basel. In this listing, five artworks have been selected from the 80-odd gallery presentations on view.
Mimosa Echard at Galerie Chantal Crousel
Nominated for the Prix Marcel Duchamp 2022, Mimosa Echard is an emerging artist whose layered artworks explore cross-contamination between organic and non-organic objects.
In past works, Echard has worked with fungi, as explored during her residency at the Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto in 2019, as well as kombucha, setting up the Kombucha Project Center with fellow artist Michel Blazy in 2017 as part of the exhibition LUCA – Last Universal Common Ancestor at Dortmunder Kunstverein.
Using natural materials, Echard explores the fluidity between realms of living and non-living systems, offering a unique angle from which to consider how the digital sphere is an extension of our living world.
Peter Halley at Edouard Simoens Gallery
This acrylic on graph paper painting was made by Peter Halley in 1989, during the years he was establishing himself as an integral figure of New York's East Village art scene alongside artists such as Jeff Koons and Julian Schnabel.
Since then, Halley has become well known for his Day-Glo paintings, their vibrant geometric forms reflecting urban space.
Made up of rectangular and square 'prisons' and 'cells', with interconnecting lines representing 'conduits', his unique abstract geometries were most recently exhibited at Dallas Contemporary.
Barbara Levittoux-Świderska at Richard Saltoun Gallery
Having spotlighted Polish artist Barbara Levittoux-Świderska at Frieze Masters 2021, Richard Saltoun Gallery bring two examples of the artist's atmospheric paintings to artgenève.
The artist's work was also included in Waddington Custot's recent exhibition Making It – Women and Abstract Sculpture, where her monumental hanging textile installation Fire (Pożar) (1974) was draped delicately from the ceiling. Levittoux-Świderska is best known for her textile works, though her practice is still little-known outside of Poland.
With the art world's growing interest in textiles over the last few years, this is an oeuvre that will no doubt continue to gain the attention it deserves.
Born in Ho Chi Min City and raised in Paris, Thu Van Tran explores the violent histories associated with colonialism in subtle and poetic visual creations.
In her latest series of 'Trail Dust' graphite drawings, shown last year at Almine Rech in Paris, the artist rendered explosions from the U.S.-Vietnam War in soft grey tones.
As Ocula Magazine Editor-in-Chief Stephanie Bailey wrote on the occasion of the exhibition, the drawings act as 'stand-ins for the concept of an explosion, whether natural or man-made, and its mimetic presence throughout human history, not to mention its effects on it.'
Kim Tschang-Yeul at Almine Rech
Late artist Kim Tschang-Yeul's enduring focus on the water drop generated extraordinary versatility throughout his artistic career, with the motif recurring in plural and singular renditions on paper and canvas, and in a variety of colours, all subtly meditative.
The artist has been celebrated in solo and group exhibitions around the globe recently, with galleries including Tina Kim Gallery, Gallery Hyundai, and Almine Rech presenting extensive surveys of his work over the last two years.
Main image: Peter Halley, Untitled (1989). Acrylic painting on graph paper. 43 x 59 cm. Courtesy Edouard Simoens Gallery.
