Esther Shalev-Gerz: Between 'The Shadow' and 'The Monument against Fascism

How does landscape’s history mutate our vision? How can we place the legacy of the past in the present and create new forms of memorial? How can the contemporaneity of the witnesses' words be made audible today? How can the artist inspire a society to address violence without repeating it in the means chosen to represent it? Sculptures and monument such as The Shadow, 2018, The Gold Room, 2016, Tissage d’Europe, 2006-2009, Between Listening and Telling: Last Witnesses, 2005, Daedal(us), 2003 and The Monument against Fascism, 1986 will be discussed in Esther Shalev-Gerz’s presentation. She appears as an ‘awakener’ who invites us to feel and witness the experience of the Other by shifting preconceived notions about how we perceive reality and by acting out our mythology here and now.

Based in Paris, Esther Shalev-Gerz is internationally recognized for her contributions to the field of art in the public realm and her consistent investigation into the construction of memory, history, the natural world, democracy and cultural identities. Her works challenge the notion and practice of portraiture and consider how its qualities may contribute to contemporary discourses around the politics of representation. She has exhibited internationally in San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, Vancouver, Finland, Detroit, Geneva, Guangzhou and New York and created permanent projects in public spaces in Hamburg, Galilee, Stockholm, Knislinge, Geneva, Glasgow and now Vancouver. Significant retrospective exhibitions were presented at the Serlachius Museum, Mantta, Finland (2017), Wasserman Projects, Detroit (2016), the Musée des Beaux Arts de Lausanne (2012) and Jeu de Paume, Paris (2010). Shalev-Gerz’s work has been represented in over twenty-five monographs. See www.shalev-gerz.net

The talk will be followed by a drinks reception