Pascal Rousseau has been invited by the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire of Geneva ( MAH) to research the connection between objects and their capacity to transfix seeing. The art writer offers a fascinating story and invites the public to examine the MAH set in a fresh perspective. Tony Oursler collaborated with the artist to create the museum, which includes pieces from his interesting collection of hypnotist images.
What about a work of art or a common thing fascinates us, specifically? Can we go way or nearer to the space and time that separate us from our starting point? The scientist who led the MAH from 1922 to 1951 was already perplexed by the metaverse and augmented reality, whose perceptions are now being influenced by these issues. The uniqueness of his reflections on the power of artwork and its ability to captivate and transport us, yet virtually, through eras inspires this exhibition. A history of curiosity welcomes us to recover the MAH set in a new way through the flow of objects and images from the previous, the hypnotherapy of seeing, and the ecstasy of the senses.
The show unfolds in two levels. The first section, in the two large Palatine Galleries, emerges from Waldemar Deonna’s research, notably, his thinking developed in a 1925 article titled” Les sciences auxiliares de l’archéologie”, ( The Auxiliary Sciences of Archaeology ), in which he turns toward what outside of artistic convention and stylistic feat might explain the mystery of the power objects have on us, regardless of provenance, era, and purpose. In order to understand what he artistically refers to as their “fluidic property,” he proposes an archaeological interpretation of art objects that is entirely original for its time. This museum, which includes an Iranian coffin and a ceiling of icons that echo the materials and gleaming areas of golden objects, also explores the face-to-face experience with these objects. We come to the imagery of vision and their fixating power as a result of this practice. Take, for instance, the vacant gaze of a Modigliani portrait in speech with its outdated sources. More online travel through time through things is made possible by the senses. Deonna’s depiction of a hypnotized young dancer, which Genevan Emile Magnin’s book Art et Hypnose ( 1907 ), transports us to ancient Greece and introduces us to the body’s original rhythm. The study of rebirth and rebirth is both a science of discovery and an encounter. In its most engaging mode, the animated picture always goes far. Tony Oursler, a forerunner of movie sculpture, extends this invitation through his multimedia installation, which remarkably condenses the whole history of hypnotism.
at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Genève ( MAH)
until October 27, 2024