Proxy Paradise

Curated by Balthazar Lovay, Director of Fri-Art, the Kunsthalle in Fribourg, 'Proxy Paradise' presents a series of specially-produced works by recent graduates from the Geneva School of Art and Design, for the New Heads BNP Paribas Art Awards. Usually conceived as a proposal somewhere between a graduation show and a prize for young Swiss-based artists, this year's exhibition seems to have accessed another dimension. Collectively conceived as a curatorial statement that opposes the very idea of competition, ‘Proxy Paradise’ relies on inventive strategies or 'proxies' that allow the artists to avoid the cults of authorship (by delegation, infiltration, collaboration or even disappearance) or of seduction (parody, confrontation, critique, conversations) that are usually associated with art awards. The result by the 14 participants selected by Lovay form, in the end, a drily consistent arrangement of artworks that reveal the ethical aspirations of an emerging generation of artists.
- Yann Chateigné