Vidya Gastaldon and Jean-Michel Wicker began their collaboration at the end of their studies they both attended at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Grenoble and continued to develop throughout the 90s. Together, they have worked in mediums as diverse as video, drawing, performance, print and textile sculpture. This exhibition is based on a donation by the artists to the MAMCO consisting of some twenty works on paper and several installations.
MAMCO Geneva Rue des Vieux-Grenadiers 10, 1205 Geneva/CH
Vidya Gastaldon was born in 1974 in Besançon. She lives and works in Grange Neuve (Ain), France.
With her mystical, fantastical and extremely vivid approach to art, Vidya Gastaldon develops a sort of harmonisation of qualities both spiritual and physical. Allergic to any attempt to control and restrain her universe, she delivers a cosmic overview combining Hindi divinities, Muppet-Show characters and Christian references. Her work, reminiscent of artists such as Turner, Burchfield, Blake or Bunuel, is extremely multi faced and deals with the divine, the hallucinatory but also with everyday life. In a mixture of sacred, sensual, tongue-in-cheek and sometimes provocative creations, she manages to establish a connection between “being” and “meant to be”. She engenders new beliefs, and by means of negative and positive impulses she pushes social unconsciousness out of the way, liberating our collective thought of the predefined egregores that oblige us to keep reproducing spiritual and social patterns.
Her work is part of the following collections: Frac Normandie, Rouen; Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rhein; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brest; Fonds Municipal d’Art Contemporain, Geneva; Jenisch Museum, Vevey; Kunst Museum Bern; CNAP, Centre national des arts plastiques, Paris; Collection Région Piémont, Turin; Kadist Art Foundation, Paris; MAMCO, Geneva; Musée National d’Art Moderne – Centre Pompidou, Paris.
Selected solo exhibitions: Océan sentimental, Centre d’Art Contemporain Les Capucins, Embrun (2022); J’aurais voulu qu’on s’aime tous, Wilde, Genève (2020), Objets peints au feu de bois, Art : Concept, Paris (2019); Push the earth with your knees, the sky with your head, Art Bärtschi & Cie, Geneva (2017); Les Rescapés, Musée de l’Abbaye Sainte-Croix, Les Sables d’Olonne; Hello From the Other Side, Art : Concept, Paris (2016); Tu es Monstrueux et je t’aime beaucoup, MAMCO, Geneva (2012); Domaine de Kerguehennec, Bignan (2009), among others. In 2019 her work was part of the group exhibition ‘Futur, ancien, fugitif’ at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris.
Richard Fauguet, Tête de thon, 1999, collage sur papier/collage on paper, 30 x 21 cm (11 3/4 x 8 1/4 in.)
Richard Fauguet, Sans titre (Céramique), 2009-2010, céramique, silicone/ceramic, silicone, 107 x 32 x 30 cm (42 1/8 x 12 5/8 x 11 3/4 in.)
Jeremy Deller, Mari Lwyd of Pontypool, Wales (en collaboration avec Alan Kane), 2001, photographie couleur, encadrée/C-type print, mounted and framed, 176 x 81,5 cm (69 1/4 x 32 1/8 in.) ed 3
Vidya Gastaldon, Les invités (après), 2013, 13 objets peints à l’acrylique dimensions variables/13 objects painted with acrylic paint variable dimensions
Ulla von Brandenburg, Monster (monstres), 2013, papier découpé sur document trouvé/cut-out paper on found document, 106 x 86,5 cm (41 3/4 x 34 in.) Collection privée/private collection CH
Ulla von Brandenburg, Masken (masques), 2013, papier découpé sur document trouvé/cut-out paper on found document, 56 x 64 cm (22 x 25 1/4 in.) Collection privée/private collection
Martine Aballéa, Poison mort, 2013, fiole en verre, glycérine, colorant alimentaire noir, arôme/orange glass flask, glycerine, black food colouring, orange smell, 9,5 x 5 x 5 cm (3 3/4 x 2 x 2 in.) ed 1/10
Hubert Duprat, Coupé-Cloué, 1991-1994, bois de hêtre et clous tapissiers en laiton/beech wood and upholstery brass nails, 70 x 517 x 40 cm & 40 x 505 x 40 cm (27 1/2 x 203 x 15 3/4 in. & 15 3/4 x 198 x 15 3/4 in.)
Vidya Gastaldon, Healing Painting (Ante-Landscape), 2014, huile sur tableau trouvé/oil on found painting, 69 x 59 cm (27 1/8 x 23 1/4 in.)
Geert Goiris, Overgrown, 2014 impression pigmentaire/archival pigment print, 150 x 125 cm (59 x 49 1/4 in.) ed 5 + 1 AP
