Pierre Schwerzmann

Pierre Schwerzmann

Work from “Two” at Skopia, Geneva.

“At first glance, then, the eye is attracted by the vibrations of the light well at the centre of the painting. The immediate effect of these vibrations is to prevent the gaze from settling and to incite the body itself to start moving in order to adjust. It is not a matter of the image as something that creates a distance […] but of a destabilising, repelling effect. The body/objectiveʼs attempt to adapt and grasp the image and thus fix it proves vain, and instability turns into a growing feeling of irritation. Do we end up seeing nothing at all? After all is said and done, does the picture have nothing more to offer than a splendid void? This willed irritation is already present in Schwerzmannʼs earlier works, but in this new series its radicalism goes beyond purely optical phenomena to insinuate itself into the body and then into the emotions — understood here in the etymological sense as that which moves out and agitates, and therefore makes us react. In this specific relational situation, these are like so many defence mechanisms before a moving image. It is as if there is a non-concordance between the perceiving subject and the perceived object, both temporally and spatially (or locally), taking the form not of an emptiness, but of an absence.” – Slash Paris