11.02.2017-12.15.2017

Galerie Schifferli

5 NTSHAK, 5 CHILLIDA

To celebrate the 10th birthday of AVV, the gallery Schifferli presents an exhibition on the universe of signs and time. 

As its title suggests, this exhibition confronts five textile raffia creations from the Kuba, people of Zaire, with five artworks by Eduardo Chillida revealing the gripping and attracting links existing between these two worlds.

It brings to my mind the words of Margit Rowell: 

“It is not by chance that certain modern paintings remind us with a “worrying strangeness” of these African textiles. Even if the sources of inspiration and the cultural context remain ineffably different, the final result is the same. It is not that the artist expresses himself as an individual, but the nature and fundamental mysteries of the universe express themselves through the artist. One might say that it is about a conjunction of a primitive or ancient wisdom and a modern philosophy, both of which may be defined as existential fatalism. It is because a universal principle operates which seems manifest in these two expressions “to be in the world "and “the human being cannot master its destiny”. In other words “a throw of dice will never eliminate fate.”