February 3–March 19, 2017
Various locations, Gstaad, Switzerland
The unexpected power and dynamics of avalanches are the curatorial point of departure for this second winter exhibition curated by Neville Wakefield and Olympia Scarry. The exhibition is featuring an international program of sculpture, performance, video and sound installations. Offsetting the ephemeral and transitive nature of these performances will be a number of sculptural and site-specific interventions created by internationally established and emerging artists. Elevation 1049—Avalanche is produced and supported by the LUMA Foundation, with additional support by the founding patrons and further private donors.
Participating artists: Allora & Calzadilla, Cecilia Bengolea, Michaël Borremans, Douglas Gordon & Morgane Tschiember, Yngve Holen, Ryoji Ikeda, Sarah Morris, Thomas Schütte, Superflex, Tatiana Trouvé & Grace Hall, Nicole Wermers.
In collaboration with The Vinyl Factory
Inspired by Avalanche, the 1970s magazine closely associated with post-minimalist, post-studio conceptual artists in the United States and Europe—which also lends its name to this project—this year’s iteration relies on different interpretations of land art, ultimately replacing content about art with direct communication with the artists through their work and thought. The exhibition will be formed around two very different impulses: the first to create sculptures that like the mountains themselves will endure over time, the second to create an artist-driven event that like the snow itself is inherently unstable and subject to sudden change comprising of video, sound and performance.
The sculptural aspect of the show—associated with the structure and stability of the mountains themselves—will continue the tradition started with the 2014 iteration of Elevation 1049—Between Heaven and Hell of large scale site specific sculpture created in response the landscape of Gstaad and its surroundings. These works will remain in Gstaad and are accessible to the public for the duration of the winter season.
The anti-monumental aspect of the show—associated with the instability and temporarily transformative effects of snow—will consist of a series of artists’ performances and sound installations that will take place over the course of the opening weekend of February 3–5, 2017. Each performance will involve an intense but temporary transformation of a type of space familiar to Gstaad: whether the unbounded space of outdoors from the glacier, lake or forest or the contained interior spaces that range from a barn to the Palace Hotel to the Menuhin Festival tent.
Press enquiries:
International
Cultural Counsel
Adam Abdalla: adam [at] culturalcounsel.com / T +1 917 453 7853
Erin Pinover: erin [at] culturalcounsel.com
Switzerland
Matylda Walczak: press [at] elevation1049.org / T +41 (0)61 322 45 00
About the curators
Olympia Scarry is a Swiss artist living in New York. Scarry is the co-curator and the co-founder of Elevation 1049. She is the granddaughter of famed children’s book author and illustrator Richard Scarry who resided in Gstaad. Scarry received her BFA in Psychology at The American University, in Paris and her Master’s degree in Art at NYU. Her first solo show was held at the Conduits Gallery in Milan and group exhibitions include Barbican in London, MOMA Baku, and the Venice Biennale Collateral.
Neville Wakefield is a curator, creative director, and writer based in New York City. Wakefield is the co-curator and the co-founder of Elevation 1049. He has served as the senior curatorial advisor for MoMA PS1 and curator of Frieze Projects. Curatorial projects include: Matthew Barney: Prayer Sheet with the Wound and the Nail at the Schaulager, Xenophilia (Love of the unknown) at MoCA Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles. As well as being co-founder and co-curator of Elevation 1049, he is also co-founder of Destricted, a series of films that address the issue of sexuality in art, served as the creative director for Tar magazine, as well as more recently the Creative Director of Playboy Enterprises. In October 2015 he was appointed Artistic Director of Desert X, a site-specific show taking place in the Palm Springs area in 2017.
About the LUMA Foundation
The LUMA Foundation was established in 2004 by Maja Hoffmann in Switzerland to support the activities of independent artists and pioneers, as well as institutions working in the fields of visual arts, photography, publishing, documentary, and multimedia. The foundation commissions, produces and supports challenging artistic projects combining a particular interest in environmental issues, human rights, education, and culture in the broadest sense. The Foundation engages in long-term collaborations with institutions like the New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York), CCS Bard College (Annandale-on-Hudson, New York), Serpentine Gallery and Tate Modern (London), Kunsthalle Zürich and the Fotomuseum Winterthur (Switzerland), as well as arts festivals and biennials around the world.
The LUMA Foundation and LUMA Arles, the executive entity founded in 2014 in support of the project in Arles (France), are currently developing an experimental cultural centre that brings together artists, researchers, and creators from every field to collaborate on multidisciplinary works and exhibitions. Located south of Arles’ historic city center, the project repurposes the industrial ruins of a 10-acre rail depot and introduces a new public park at the Parc des Ateliers.
