I Want You So Bad
A group show with
Miriam Beichert, Yann Stéphane Biscaut, Simon Boixader, Karine Deluz, Anna Diehl, Abigail Janjic, Damien Juillard, Aramis Navarro, Claire Megumi Masset, Elias Njima, Gabriel Nunige, Noemi Pfister, Arnaud Sancosme, Sarah Valérie Steiner, Ismael Taha, Jeanne Tara, Niels Trannois, Elektra Tzamouranis, Caroline Ventura, Shannon Zwicker

I Want You So Bad

Twenty artists from three different language regions responding to:

• I really want you so, a strong attraction for someone or something. In this case, one’s attraction to the piece of art.
• bad, an invitation to propose a piece that stands out from the rest of the artist’s production, perhaps poorly realized, incoherent, playing with the notions of subjectivity and relevance.

• I want you, the piece being visually or technically linked to that of another artist, in dialogue, confrontation or echo.

It took ten minutes for the first response to this invitation and two months for the last.

Ismael explores the human body and its various states, with a focus on la fécondité, and smokes up a human head, of which only a pair of eyes remain, into dozens of brightly colored pieces.

Sarah strikes a pose for the photo, and then for her untitled canvas, in a blurred domestic space, with no real reference to time, weather, or mood.

Elektra, perhaps weary of people, sends her piece almost as a kick from northeast Germany, an image of her bathtub, now the object or activity of her Sunday.

Elias, not without dexterity, offers a (personally polished and framed by hand) portrait de Marlène Charpentié striking a rather serious pose for a clown.

Miriam entrusts the space with a jar of Sauerkraut, painted, stained, sprayed, covered, and then painted again, like a translucent and arrogant still life, because indeed sauerkraut can too become a subject.

Caroline has fun in the rooms she occupies, like in adolescence, multiplying collages of no paper elements of dubious quality in a diptych, making a little finger at the market in passing.

Damien writes JJ on a face and on his smartphone, prints the composition on textile, freezes it behind stained Plexiglas and adds a few mismatched stickers, because there may never be enough layers on a piece.

Abigail covers her piece with multiple fluids as if coming from a jerry can of chemicals, keeping the motto respice finem in mind, bringing the final functional touches into the space.

Noemi depicts with irony and sarcasm a potential fable scene between a beetle and death, the latter explaining to the insect the end of the story: everyone needs a friend.

Yann carries his ghostly characters in a round, brume dansante, surely a mental by-product, in square, from one of his strange dreams.

Gabriel lays one of his many figures of inspiration in a psychedelic, acidic haze to the point of making a party-goer’s head spin, fumb as duck.

Shannon deposits pigmented drops into the depths of the paper’s fibers, mixing like the saliva of two tickling tongues, meanwhile sketching out the shape of the exhibition poster’s snake.

Anna continues her exploration into an enigmatic monochrome world, with a close-up shot, and komisch blau on a torsion of flesh as tense on the linen as the tension between them.

Simon shapes from two sides, assembling without hierarchy, pieces of sheet, snippets of text, rope, bits of drawings, old wood, some grit and boldness, finally presenting the côté face.

Aramis juggles with a lemon and a melon, plays with his palindrome n°2 of a series which undoubtedly comprises more, as with the person who is in front of it.

Niels, exhausted by his journey but fascinated by the decapitated sculpture of Mélos A he discovers at the end, compresses his almost obsessive process to a thin layer of crimson porcelain.

Karine responds modestly on size, generously on number and gracefully on form, with a quadriptych apparently painted in ihrem Bett and on reclaimed wood.

Arnaud, subtle and applied humor, makes a triple jump in a single painting (D’après une peinture de Diane Rivoire, d’après le graphisme de Louise Bailat), declaring in mid-air: now we’re getting down to business.

Jeanne projects discreet shadows on the gray wall with two elements of her mobile triptych, the third one coming to rest as the only three-dimensional piece in the space, as if in la place publique.

Claire transports her piece diagonally across the country, shares her daily life with it, entrusts it with a bit of her thoughts as well as her being, leaves on it tears sweat or wet, just like the efforts made for this much fantasized exhibition.

I want you so, so, so bad.

From 17 February to 3 March 2022
Photos: YAL
Translation: Yasemin Imre
Graphic design: Sirkka Ammann
Screenprint: Sabrina Peerally, Atelier Madame
Lights: Hybrid Concept

instagram.com/taha.ismael_
linktr.ee/sarahvalerie
eliasnjima.com
miriambeichert.com
carolineventura.ch
instagram.com/dmnjllrd
abigail-janjic.com
noemipfister.ch
instagram.com/ga.ya__
gabrielnunige.cargo.site
shannonzwicker.ch
annadiehl.ch
instagram.com/srvtnr
aramisnavarro.com
nielst.net
instagram.com/karinedeluz
arnaudsancosme.ch
jeannetara.com
instagram.com/claire.megumi