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«This Morning, in the Sweet Torpor of the Great Forest, is Like Every Morning in the World» at Country SALTS

Group Show, October 4 until December 17, 2020

Artists

Adeline Mollard, Claudia Comte, Claudia Comte & Adeline Mollard, Elise Corpataux, Peter Zumthor, Solange Pessoa, Ugo Rondinone, Violeta Burckhardt

Institution

Country SALTS

Location

Bennwil

Download

Press release (PDF)

Website

salts.ch

Exhibition View Group Show «This Morning, in the Sweet Torpor of the Great Forest, is Like Every Morning in the World; view on Violeta Burckhardt, Wir Schaffen Das, 2020, Fiat car, earth, Trachycarpus fortunei (palm trees from Ticino, Switzerland), Dimensions variable» at Country SALTS, Bennwil, 2020 / Photo: Gunnar Meier / Courtesy: the artist

SALTS is pleased to present the inaugural exhibition "This Morning, in the Sweet Torpor of the Great Forest, is Like Every Morning in the World" curated by Samuel Leuenberger and Claudia Comte. The exhibition launches Country SALTS' programme in its new environment perched amongst the rolling green hills of the canton Baselland, with a discussion on nature imagined through the diverse approaches of seven artists.

Spanning various media - including painting, sculpture, graphic design, and landscape/architecture - the artworks in the exhibition highlight the ways in which artists today, during a time of immense social and environmental upheaval, identify with nature and the often romanticized pastoral scene. The exhibition challenges the concept of countryside as peripheral space, always outside the citified center, and reflects on the regenerative force with which nature persists in the realm of art history until today.

The artists in the exhibition are drawn together through their nuanced examinations of the inexhaustible link between the human condition and nature. Here, we find ourselves able to take repose in states of torpor, emboldenment, or something other.

Violeta Burckhardt & Peter Zumthor

In the center of the exhibition space, Violeta Burckhardt's towering installation, "Wir Schaffen Das," stages an analogous portrait of migration, beauty, and cultural diversity that reveals the ways in which plants and humans are intricately connected. Nearby, an architectural model by Peter Zumthor captures an act of human intervention residing in harmony with its natural environment.

Ugo Rondinone & Elise Corpataux

Romanticism's mythologizing of mountains and sunsets as symbols of revelation are reanimated by various artists in the exhibition. Ugo Rondinone depicts a sunrise rendered in softly brushed watercolor, evoking a desire to acquiesce to time, solitude, and the natural world. Elise Corpataux's depictions of sunsets reveal our online and networked link to the outside, complicating the sentimentalism of witnessing a sunset today.

Claudia Comte & Adeline Mollard

In Claudia Comte and Adeline Mollard's wall painting, language is used as both formal and expressive devices in the representation of a landscape. The work reflects on nature and landscape painting, mirroring the peaks and valleys of a mountain scape. Their collaboration is a culmination of a series of interviews conducted since 2007, translated into graphic compositions on the walls of an exhibition space.

Solange Pessoa

In the sculptural practice of Solange Pessoa, the lines demarcating art, nature, and life are continuously obscured, a coalescence the artist embraces. Pessoa's deep bond with nature culminates in her telluric works comprised of organic and unconventional materials, presenting issues of physical, temporal, and symbolic intensity.

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Exhibition View Group Show «This Morning, in the Sweet Torpor of the Great Forest, is Like Every Morning in the World; view on Ugo Rondinone, vierterdezemberzweitausendundneunzehn, 2019, Watercolour on canvas, artist’s frame, plexiglass plaque with caption, 202 x 302 cm» at Country SALTS, Bennwil, 2020 / Photo: Gunnar Meier / Courtesy: the artist and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich / New York

Exhibition View Group Show «This Morning, in the Sweet Torpor of the Great Forest, is Like Every Morning in the World; view on Violeta Burckhardt, Wir Schaffen Das, 2020, (detail), Fiat car, earth, Trachycarpus fortunei (palm trees from Ticino, Switzerland), Dimensions variable» at Country SALTS, Bennwil, 2020 / Photo: Gunnar Meier / Courtesy: the artist

Exhibition View Group Show «This Morning, in the Sweet Torpor of the Great Forest, is Like Every Morning in the World» at Country SALTS, Bennwil, 2020 / Photo: Gunnar Meier / Courtesy: the artists and Country SALTS

Exhibition View Group Show «This Morning, in the Sweet Torpor of the Great Forest, is Like Every Morning in the World; view on Solange Pessoa, Untitled, 2019, Bronze and grapes, 10 x 110 x 80 cm | 16 x 60 x 100 cm | 20 x 100 x 130 cm» at Country SALTS, Bennwil, 2020 / Photo: Gunnar Meier / Courtesy: the artist and Mendes Wood DM, Brüssels / Sao Paolo

Exhibition View Group Show «This Morning, in the Sweet Torpor of the Great Forest, is Like Every Morning in the World; view on Solange Pessoa, Untitled, 2019, (detail), Bronze and grapes, 10 x 110 x 80 cm | 16 x 60 x 100 cm | 20 x 100 x 130 cm» at Country SALTS, Bennwil, 2020 / Photo: Gunnar Meier / Courtesy: the artist and Mendes Wood DM, Brüssels / Sao Paolo

Exhibition View Group Show «This Morning, in the Sweet Torpor of the Great Forest, is Like Every Morning in the World; view on Solange Pessoa, Untitled, 2019, ceramic, 32 × 22 × 33 cm and Claudia Comte & Adeline Mollard, Pietro Sarto (The Interview Wall Paintings), 2007/20, Acrylic wall painting, Dimensions determined space» at Country SALTS, Bennwil, 2020 / Photo: Gunnar Meier / Courtesy: the artist and König Gallery, Berlin / London & Gladstone Gallery, New York / Brussels

Exhibition View Group Show «This Morning, in the Sweet Torpor of the Great Forest, is Like Every Morning in the World; view on Peter Zumthor, Site model 1:500, built in 2014, Mountain Hotel Braunwald, Switzerland, Styrofoam, sand, wax, steel wool, soap, 55 x 166 x 163 cm» at Country SALTS, Bennwil, 2020 / Photo: Gunnar Meier / Courtesy: Permanent loan from the Ateliers Peter Zumthor to the Kunsthaus Bregenz

Exhibition View Group Show «This Morning, in the Sweet Torpor of the Great Forest, is Like Every Morning in the World; view on Elise Corpataux, All we have is now (Series), 2020, Acrylic on canvas, framed photograph, each: 30 x 24 cm and Claudia Comte & Adeline Mollard, Pietro Sarto (The Interview Wall Paintings), 2007/20, Acrylic wall painting, Dimensions determined space» at Country SALTS, Bennwil, 2020 / Photo: Gunnar Meier / Courtesy: the artist; König Gallery, Berlin / London & Gladstone Gallery, New York / Brussels

Exhibition View Group Show «This Morning, in the Sweet Torpor of the Great Forest, is Like Every Morning in the World; view on Elise Corpataux, All we have is now (Series), 2020, (detail), Acrylic on canvas, framed photograph, each: 30 x 24 cm» at Country SALTS, Bennwil, 2020 / Photo: Gunnar Meier / Courtesy: the artist

Exhibition View Group Show «This Morning, in the Sweet Torpor of the Great Forest, is Like Every Morning in the World; view on Claudia Comte & Adeline Mollard, Pietro Sarto (The Interview Wall Paintings), 2007/20, (detail), Acrylic wall painting, Dimensions determined space and Ugo Rondinone, vierterdezemberzweitausendundneunzehn, 2019, Watercolour on canvas, artist’s frame, plexiglass plaque with caption, 202 x 302 cm» at Country SALTS, Bennwil, 2020 / Photo: Gunnar Meier / Courtesy: the artists; König Gallery, Berlin / London & Gladstone Gallery, New York / Brussels and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich / New York