Moser & Schwinger

Moser & Schwinger

Thursday, March 4, 2010, 7pm, at Kadist Art Foundation

The films of Frédéric Moser and Philippe Schwinger deal with historical facts and capture the war, the hypocrisy of social relationships and the disenchanted desire for utopia, by use of fiction as a ersion. The two artists could appropriate Jacques Rancière's sentence « The real must be fictionalized in order to be thought ». Indeed, after selecting a « fact », their work starts with the writing of a scenario based on a particularly well-documented study of behaviors, attitudes and context, as well as the chain of original events. But this is erted, manipulated and reenacted, thus creating a distance, which paradoxically will enable our judgment.  
Françoise Ninghetto      

In 1988, Frédéric Moser (1966) and Philippe Schwinger (1961) created the «l'Atelier ici et maintenant », an independent theater company in Lausanne that they directed until 1991. From 1993 to 98, they studied at the School of Visual Arts in Geneva. They were granted the Federal Prize of Fine Arts (1998-99-2000), as well as the YoungArt Prize (2000). In 2001, they received a grant from the  Schloß Solitude Academy in Stuttgart; in 2003, they were invited to inaugurate the residency program of the Art Center Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw. They represented Switzerland at the contemporary art Biennale of São Paulo in 2004. Since 2002, they live and work in Berlin. Their works are exhibited in many museums and art centers: 2004, Capitulation Project, Cornerhouse Manchester, 2006 Farewell Letter to the Swiss Workers, Kunsthaus Zürich, 2007 History will repeat itself, Kunst-Werke Berlin, 2008, Avant moi le flou, après moi le déluge, Mamco Geneva. In parallel, they participate in film festivals in Locarno, Rotterdam, London, etc.

---