The Musée d’Art et d’Histoire of Geneva (MAH) has invited Pascal Rousseau to explore the relationship between objects and their power to transfix seeing. The art historian recounts a history of fascination and invites the public to rediscover the MAH’s collection in a new light. The exhibition is realised in collaboration with the artist Tony Oursler and includes work from his fascinating archives on the visual imagination of hypnotism.
What is it that fascinates us about a work of art or an ordinary object? Can we travel across the space and time that separates us from its origin, whether near or far? The metaverse and augmented reality are now shifting our perceptions, but these questions were already engaging Waldemar Deonna, the archaeologist who headed the MAH from 1922 to 1951. This exhibition is inspired by the originality of his reflections on the power of art and its capacity to capture our attention and transport us, even virtually, through eras. Auras and halos, the flux of objects and images from the past, the hypnosis of seeing, and the ecstasy of the senses—a history of fascination welcomes us to rediscover the MAH collection in a new light.
The exhibition unfolds in two stages. The first section, in the two large Palatine Galleries, emerges from Waldemar Deonna’s research, notably, his thinking developed in a 1925 article titled “Les sciences auxiliares de l’archéologie,” (The Auxiliary Sciences of Archaeology), in which he turns toward what outside of artistic convention and stylistic feat might explain the mystery of the power objects have on us, regardless of provenance, era, and purpose. Seeking to understand the force at work within this charm—what he poetically calls their “fluidic property”—he proposes an anthropological interpretation of art objects that is entirely innovative for its period. In Deonna’s footsteps, this exhibition also plays with the face-to-face encounter with these objects, bringing together an Egyptian sarcophagus and a wall of icons that echo the material and gleaming surfaces of golden objects. This experience brings us to the symbolism of eyes and their transfixing power. Take, for example, the empty stare of a Modigliani portrait in dialogue with its archaic sources. The ecstasy of the senses allows for more virtual travel through time via objects. The image of a hypnotised young dancer, which Deonna discovered in the book Art et Hypnose (Art and Hypnosis, 1907) by Genevan Emile Magnin, takes us into Ancient Greece to encounter original rhythm through the body. Archaeology is not only a science of rediscovery but also an experience of reanimation. The animated image is never far in its most immersive mode. This is the invitation that the American artist Tony Oursler, a pioneer of video sculpture, extends through his multimedia installation that amazingly condenses the entire history of the visual imagination of hypnotism.
at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Genève (MAH)
until October 27, 2024