Julian Charrière

Julian Charrière (born 1987, Morges, Switzerland)^[1] is a Swiss artist currently living and working in Berlin, Germany. He attended the École cantonale d'art du Valais and the Berlin University of the Arts. He collaborated with Julius von Bismarck for the site specific performance “Some pigeons are more equal than others” at the 2012 Venice Architecture Bienniale and this project has also been adapted for performances/instillations in Copenhagen and Berlin.^[2][3] The aforementioned work incorporates a pigeon trapping device designed by Charrière and Bismarck. This equipment is positioned in a public place to capture and subsequently airbrush pigeons as they chart their path within the vicinity.

From September until November 2013, Charrière had a solo outdoor exhibition of his work at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, called "Somehow they never stop doing what they always did".^[4]

Charrière was the recipient of the 2014 Prix culturel Manor Vaud which featured a major solo exhibition of his work at the Cantonal Museum of Fine Arts in Lausanne.^[5]

In September 2016 Charierre had a two-man exhibition with Peter Liversidge at the Sean Kelly Gallery in New York City, his effort entitled "Freeze, Memory" is his first time showing with the gallery.^[6][7]

Charrière works often with scholars and writers such as Timothy Morton,^[8] Paul Feigelfeld,^[9] Nadim Samman ^[10] and David Khalat ^[11], among others.

Personal Works

1. "Clockwork" : in collaboration with Julius von Bismarck - twelve concrete mixers, arranged in a circle, are filled with bits and pieces of various Viennese buildings. A statement on urban decay.
2. "Somehow, They Never Stop Doing What They Always Did": a series of small architectural structures protected by glass cases, seem to become a part of history itself as bacteria slowly eats away at the already decaying surfaces.
3. "Polygon / Somewhere": a series of photographs taken at Semipalatinsk, a nuclear test site in Kazakhstan. The photographs are submitted to radiation before being developed.
4. "On The Sidewalk, I Have Forgotten the Dinosauria": displayed in a glass case, Charriére uses a combination of sand, rock, and soil taken from core drilling in Berlin.
5. "The Blue Fossil Entropic Series": a photographic series in which Charriére traveled to the Arctic to investigate global warming.
6. "We Are All Astronauts": inspired by the writings of Buckminster Fuller, thirteen globes, ranging drastically in age, float over a table.
7. "And the Post-Modern Collapse of Time and Space": a video loop of a stone rolling down an Icelandic mountainside
8. "Tropisme" : a series of frozen plants sit on display behind a refrigerated glass case, showcasing vitality and decay.
9. "Future Fossil Spaces" : beams of rock, salt, and lithium are placed around a room, a narrative on the past and the future.
10. "Panorama" : what seems like beautiful landscape shots of mountains is actually a set constructed by Charriére himself

^[12]

Exhibitions

1. "For They That Sow the Wind": Parasol unit, London, UK (2016)
2. "Die Kräfte hinter den Formen": Kunstmuseen Krefeld, Krefeld, Germany (2016)
3. "No One Belongs Here More Than You": Despacio, San José, Costa Rica (2016)
4. "Desert Now": Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, California (2016)
5. "Not Really Really": Frédéric de Goldschmidt collection, Art Brussels (2016)
6. "Zeitgeist - Arte Da Nova Berlim": Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil [CCBB], Rio de Janeiro, Brasil (2016)

^[12]

"Desert Now"

Perhaps one of Charriére's most popular exhibitions is Desert Now, a collaboration with two other German artists, Julius von Bismarck and Felix Kiessling. The show serves as a narration of the trio's drug-induced trip through the American Southwest. The combination of organic vegetation, electronics, and commonly used modern day objects create a sort of dystopian wonderland for its viewers. The artists weave together spindly structures to create almost cactus-like forms, mimicking the vegetation found in the Southwestern United States. The space itself is rather large and desolate, much like a desert. Viewers are encouraged to explore the space and consider the meaning behind the seemingly random pieces.

The exhibit seeks to explore the relationship between the organic and the manmade, while simultaneously tackling difficult subjects such as the population growth or the way humanity affects the Earth ecologically. The pieces themselves range anywhere from photographs, to actual minerals or vegetation found in the American desert. On one side of the room, we see a tumbleweed-like structure continuously bouncing along the track of a treadmill, blown by a modern-day fan. On the other, we see a crystalized Adderall tablet and LSD blotter, a statement on the overmedication of humanity. The exhibition is a rather "trippy" experience that entertains and provokes the minds of its audience.

^[13]

The Police Raid

On March 1, 2017, German police flocked to the Swiss artist's Berlin studio, searching for Charriére's most recent work, entitled The Purchase of the South Pole. Charriére had worked on the piece, a one ton air cannon, over the course of two months; it was originally meant to be displayed in the first Antarctic Biennale. Instead, the air cannon currently resides in a confiscation facility, alongside other illegal weaponry (2017). The cannon was originally designed, not to fire any sort of harmful projectiles, but rather a single coconut found on the shores of Bikini Atoll; in fact, the barrel of the cannon itself is actually the trunk of a coconut tree.

The confiscation occurred while Charriére was attending The Armory Show in New York City. Back home in Germany, a pedestrian out for a stroll with their dog noticed Charriére's assistant constructing the weapon in the studio's courtyard, preparing to test it before shipping the piece to Antarctica. Still shaken from the recent terrorist attack in December, the passerby was quick to call the authorities. Upon their arrival, the officers were surprised and rather confused to find themselves in an artist's studio. Nonetheless, authorities confiscated the potentially threatening cannon.

"We're going to fight for it," Charriére said in a statement to Artsy Editorial. Although the piece itself will not be able to be displayed in the Antarctic Biennale, The Purchase of the South Pole will be honored through the documentation of the confiscation.

^[14]

References

External links

• Video of "Some pigeons are more equal than others" during the 2012 Architecture biennale in Venice