Claudia Comte – If I where a rabbit, where would I keep my gloves?
8th June – 20th July 2013
Opening reception 7th June, 6 – 8 pm
Claudia Comte creates environments where wall paintings or burnt panels enter into dialogue with her sculptures, video projections add multiple dimensions to the white cube, or colourful objects stand out against monochrome backgrounds. The idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, adapted into visual arts by Bauhaus, allows Comte to find her inspiration in nature, architecture, popular culture and to then transform these ideas into modernist spaces where her sculptures stand like trees in geometric landscapes.
Always inspired by her surroundings, site-specificity plays an important role in the creative process. Working on-site for her most recent exhibitions, Comte decided to return to the studio for If I were a rabbit, where would I keep my gloves? Working from a very precise model of the gallery space, it soon became clear that the space had to give way to the work. Large and colourful paintings, in a way replacing the wall paintings, need room to reveal their full potential. One large space means that each separate work becomes part of the whole. Not just a scenery for her sculptures, Comte’s paintings invite us to rediscover colour and geometry.
Comte’s paintings, inspired by her Swiss geometric art heritage, contrast with her sculptures, which are softer and haptic, akin to the work of artists like Henry Moore and Jean Arp. Although her sources of inspiration are very much real, the final result is not one depicting reality, hence allowing every onlooker their personal interpretation. With the series that Comte has produced for this exhibition, she proves the control she has over the vigorous production process. Although clearly a series, each work has its own character and stands perfectly on its own, poised uniquely on each plinth.
The fact that each element within the total work of art can be reinterpreted is very important for Claudia Comte. A painting from the Cocktails series, made up of 8 rectangles, allows for the rectangles to be meddled up between one another to create a completely different image. Each artwork has a story, but it may be rewritten. When one sculpture is removed from a series, the rest will stand just as strong and the one will find a new meaning. Rather than being taken out of context, a new context is created.
Claudia Comte was born in 1983 in Grancy, Switzerland and currently lives and works in Berlin, Germany. She received her BA in Fine Arts from the University of Art and Design Lausanne (ECAL) in 2007. Recent and future exhibitions include: Mixed Message Media, Gladstone Gallery, New York, 2013; Claudia Comte & Omar Ba, solo, Centre Pasquart, Bienne, 2013; Summer Villa Extension, solo, Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris, 2013; X, Y, Z, solo, Fri Art, Fribourg, 2013; Harum Scarum, Galerie Blancpain, Geneva, 2013; Trouble Rainbow III, BolteLang, Zurich, 2012; La Jeunesse est un art, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau, 2012; No Lemon No Melon, solo, Tripode, Nantes, 2012; Swiss Art Award, Basel, 2011; Trouble Rainbow II, Favorite Goods, Los Angeles, 2011; Trouble Rainbow, Galleria Marie-Laure Fleisch, Rome, 2011; Scantione-Tensione, solo, Istituto Svizzero di Roma, Rome, 2011; Welcome to Colorful, Galerie Lucy Mackintosh, Lausanne, 2010