Alex Turgeon at Tunnel Tunnel

Tunnel Tunnel is pleased to invite you to the opening of the first solo exhibition by Alex Turgeon in Switzerland, guest-curated by Simon Würsten. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier aims to make tangible the staged manifestations of melancholy and nostalgia in popular culture.

Alex Turgeon focuses on the motif of the blue rose within the exhibition, a metaphor combining the color of depression with the symbols of romanticism and fallacy. Through this motif, Turgeon explores commonplace representations of love, loss, and the dramatization of romantic hopelessness.

The exhibition delves into the construction of grief as both an individual feeling and a kitsch sense of collective identity. The "Unknown Soldier" embodies the ambiguous status of an anonymous subject of communal mourning, much like the fictitious nature of the blue rose.

The sepulchre of the soldier operates as a vehicle for a common mythology, transforming the exhibition space into a crude urban mausoleum. The glass façade becomes a literal expression of emotional despair, creating a patchwork of found fragments that reference stereotypical melancholy while characterizing a romantic fantasy of a heroic figure.

Alex Turgeon, born in 1988 in Halifax, Canada, currently lives and works in Berlin. Simon Würsten, born in 1991 in Lausanne, lives and works between Zurich and Basel.