Passports and art at the airport
Identity checks by the authorities are the norm at airports – but as people arriving at Zurich's hub are finding out, art also likes to challenge who you are.
New arrivals may be confronted with a security officer doing yoga or with art works telling them “it’s ok, stay calm” around passport control.
The airport is just one of three locations for “Shifting Identities – [Swiss] art now”, a major new exhibition of Swiss and international contemporary art by Zurich’s Kunsthaus Fine Arts Museum.
In all, 67 works – almost half of which are world premieres – are on display at the museum and airport, with some live events in the city centre. The show, which opened on June 6, is one of the largest ever held by the Kunsthaus.
“Shifting identities is an issue nowadays in the art scene, as is globalisation and all the consequences that this has brought for us and our everyday life,” exhibition curator Mirjam Varadinis told swissinfo.
This was why the airport, as a place of arrival, departure, and border crossing, was an ideal location, she explained.
“It’s also interesting to have this friction with another space, with another public, not only an art public,” said Varadinis.
Meditating security
Indeed, visitors seemed to be at once perplexed and bemused by the sight of a beefy security officer sitting down in the middle of the airport doing yoga meditation during the media preview of the exhibition. The man kept admirably still, despite all the flash photography.
The idea comes from Geneva-based artist Gianni Motti and is meant to be a “humorous reflection on the ubiquitous hysteria about security”, according to the Kunsthaus.
Sculptures and installations will also be on display, and in addition doodles with calming messages will feature at times around passport control in one of the terminals.
Italy-based artist Aleksandra Mir is even aiming to place a huge inflatable jet plane at one of the airport gates during the summer, to achieve a “sculpture in a permanent state of landing”.
But for some, the airport is not an exciting place to begin a holiday or a trip to the football. It is also a forbidding place for migrants, as shown by a video by Albanian-born artist Adrian Paci.
Stairs to nowhere
Shot at the Mineta San José international airport in the United States, it shows a group of people climbing a mobile stairway to board a departing aircraft.
“You see how they approach one of these entrances to go into an airplane but in the end you see there’s no airplane for them, there’s just the middle of nowhere and no way to get out,” explained Varadinis.
Back in the museum the art is displayed no less unconventionally. The show is made up of three sections, each dealing with a different aspect of identity: political and social issues, personal identity, and artists’ views on utopia or new ways of living.
Meaning and objects
Pamela Rosenkranz, from Zurich, is showing four pieces, which all deal with “the crossing of meaning”. This includes “Unfencing”, a video installation with blends images of fencing matches with walls and boundaries.
“Fencing means a structure you cannot pass through, but also the activity of passing through a structure, like the sport. It has the same name but is a different activity,” she told swissinfo.
Her colleague Latifa Echakhch, who lives in Paris and Martigny in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, specialises in deconstructing everyday items.
“I look at objects for what they are, a carpet without a centre, a flag pole without a flag, a world map that its not flat,” she said, referring to three of her works on show: “Frames”, “Fantasia (empty flags)”, and “Globus”.
The exhibition can at time stretch and perplex the visitor, as Varadinis readily admits. But this is part of its aim.
“I hope that people are somehow inspired or maybe also a bit intrigued, that they start to think about our society, who we are and what our values are,” she explained to swissinfo.
“I know the whole project is challenging to follow, also for the public, but I hope that they at least start to open their perception and start thinking about this issue of identity.”
swissinfo, Isobel Leybold-Johnson at the Kunsthaus and Zurich airport
“Shifting Identities – [Swiss] art now” runs until August 31.
It can be seen at the Kunsthaus, Zurich Airport and in the centre of Zurich.
There are 67 pieces on show, including 29 world premieres, created especially for the exhibition.
The Kunsthaus traditionally hosts a show devoted to contemporary Swiss art every ten years or so.
But this year, as Varadinis explains, it was decided to expand the scope because “it is not contemporary any more to do a national show… because a lot of Swiss artists live abroad and a lot of artists come and live in Switzerland”.
The “Shifting Identities” title and airport location is also particularly apt because many artists now travel around for their work. “More than managers,” remarks Varadinis.
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