FABRICE GYGI
Curator : Lionel Bovier
May 28 - September 10, 2000

"Fabrice Gygi has for several years been showing the various figures of authority nestling in our everyday environment in performances, installations and sculptures. Thus, for example, when he builds security environments - erecting barricades out of luggage, twisting the use of the police equipment needed during demonstrations or reproducing the highly biased architectural artifact of a workman's hut. The Guarita inevitably refers to the control mechanism exercised through panoptical vision, the many tents he makes and drops in art spaces refer to the ideas of a nomadic life and an insecure position. In any case, Fabrice Gygi stresses both the insidious presence, the way in which these elements are used in reality and the inherent authority of the institution in which they are bedded.
More recently, the artist has been structuring his work around new tools, exhibiting bars, podiums, ballrooms or improbable playgrounds. All of these works are in effect devices normally used to organize public events (official, sports, festive), a representation, in short, a show. Fabrice Gygi reveals that Guy Debord's alienating operator can only exist if the show contains structures of constraint. A podium, for example, allows to present the various protagonists in a show hierarchically, much in the same way as a bar organizes social roles. The barriers, needless to say, delimit the authorized space for the display of a show. The "trolley" sound system that was presented in this context reminds us that, during the "techno mouvement parades", the multiplication and the mobility of the sources of emitting the music is designed to atomize a roundup that otherwise might become too massive and therefore too unstable.
In this regard, Fabrice Gygi's work reveals that the spectacular is nothing but an ultimate figure of authority using unlimited control devices to prevent any kind of event from turning into what George Bataille referred to as the "dépense". The artist, instead of fostering direct action, organizes subversion when incorporating into his work the very elements of order. Although his works retain the full ambiguity of the functioning of their referent, Fabrice Gygi sometimes suggests ways to twist their use. For example, the Basque "chisteras" - pelota bats - may be used as propulsion weapons and air bags (supposedly shock absorbing) and be a means of throwing the furniture of a hotel room to the ceiling cannot help thinking about Gordon Matta-Clark who, when invited to an architecture exhibition, shattered all the windows with rifle shots, presenting in those holes photographs of South Bronx buildings similarly mutilated by their tenants wishing to protest against the shabbiness of their housing conditions. One may read into the violence that suddenly erupts in the institution, allowing it to reconnect to the social reality.
Lionel Bovier, essay published in the magazine Purple, # 5, Summer 2000, p. 268

This show gathers in the Magasin exhibition space "La Rue" (the Street), 18 works, dating from 1994 to 2000, 4 of the pieces newly created for the exhibition. For the most part, these pieces are devices normally used to organize public events (official, sports, festive); they are subsequent to Gygi's security environments (diversion of police and military equipment) and illustrate an identical concern of pointing to the various figures of authority nestling in our environment.
The exhibition is structured around two spaces that are opposed, one referring to the state dimension of the "forum", the other the private sphere of a kind of "autonomous province", and an intermediary space between the public and the private. A stage for shows and rows of screens separate a playground with leisure facilities and an "autonomous province" encampment.

Exhibition Checklist

Grande tente, 1994
Canvas cover, metal, wood; 250 x 200 x 300 cm.
Construction: Olivier Perrin & Fabrice Gygi, Geneva. Courtesy: Musée d'art moderne et contemporain (Mamco), Geneva.

Mur de sacs, 1994
Nylon, paper, wood; variable dimensions.
Construction: Fabrice Gygi, Geneva.

Sound system sur chariot, 1997
Aluminium, rubber, sound system, canvas cover; 100 x 100 x 95 cm.
Construction: Victor Lorenzini SA & Fabrice Gygi, Geneva.
Courtesy : Fonds municipal d'art contemporain, Geneva.

Tente bar, 1997
Sangles/metal, wood, canvas cover, straps; 250 x 200 x 200 cm.
Construction: Olivier Perrin & Fabrice Gygi, Geneva.

Airbag Generation, 1997
Canvas cover, fan; 100 x 500 x 500 cm.
Construction: Fabrice Gygi, Geneva.
Courtesy gallery Bob van Orsouw, Zurich.

Paravents, 1997
Metal, canvas cover, straps. 5 pieces 160 x 160 x 90 cm.
Construction: Olivier Perrin & Fabrice Gygi, Geneva.
Courtesy Pierre Huber, Geneva.

Viens dans ma peau, 1997
Cotton, wood, gas. 5 pieces 150 x 50 cm; 2 pieces of: 150 x 200 cm.
Construction: Gabrielle Vitte & Fabrice Gygi, Ajaccio.

Snack mobile, 1998
Stainless, steel, canvas cover, food and drinks; 240 x 240 x 160 cm.
Construction: Francesco Scarpa & Fabrice Gygi, Geneva.

Clean Point, 1998
Stainless steel, canvas cover, soap, water; 100 x 200 x 150 cm.
Construction: Michael Lau, Manhattan Sheet Metal, New York.

Poubelles-tonneaux, 1998
Metal, wood. 3 pieces Ø 89 x 72 cm each.
Construction: Olivier Perrin, Jean-Jaques Roubaty & Fabrice Gygi, Geneva/Paris.

Arabatt Al-Woudour, 1999
Stainless steel, wood, water; 162 x 197 x 126 cm.
Construction: Matthieu Chollet, Atelier Saint-Sabin (ENCI), Paris.
Courtesy galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris.

Tente polyvalente, 1999
Canvas cover, wood, fluorescent tubes; 300 x 400 x 600 cm.
Construction: Olivier Perrin, Panchaud Bâche SA & Fabrice Gygi, Geneva.
Courtesy gallery Bob van Orsouw, Zurich.

Paravents, 1999
Metal, canvas cover, straps. 5 pieces : 160 x 190 x 90 cm.
Construction: Didier Gugolle, Paris.
Courtesy galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris.

Canon à eau, 1999
Painted metal, plastic; 160 x 160 x 87 cm.
Construction: Vigano GMBH, Zurich.
Courtesy gallery Bob van Orsouw, Zurich.

Râtelier, 2000
Painted metal, macrolon, kevlar, carbon; 110 x 160 x 85 cm.
Construction: Olivier Perrin & Fabrice Gygi, Geneva.
Coutesy : Jean Chatelus, Paris.

Scène, 2000
in collaboration with Sidney Stucki.
Metal, wood, canvas cover, sound system; 350 x 600 x 200 cm.
Construction: Didier Gugole & Mathieux Chollet, Atelier St-Sabin (ENCI), Paris.
Courtesy galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris.

Gradins, 1998/2000
Metal, wood. 2 pieces of 270 x 500 x 200 cm each.
Construction: Olivier Perrin, Jean-Jaques Roubaty & Fabrice Gygi, Geneva/Paris; Le Magasin, Olivier Perrin & Fabrice Gygi, Geneva/Grenoble.

Minoviras, 2000
Canvas cover. Diameter 284 cm (1 piece with diameter of 200 cm and 38 cones with diameter of 20 x 42 cm).
Construction: Howald Nautic Selection, Geneva. Collection: Pierre Huber, Geneva.