In progress – Torson

The creative process is enriched by continuous interactions with the environment, materials, experiences, perceptions, time and space. The work can be seen as an assemblage of multiple temporalities, where each moment captured – a correction, an attempt, a hesitation – contributes to a journey towards a coherent whole.

It becomes an evolving structure, taking shape between and beyond the walls of the studio, during its exhibition and even afterwards, an entity in perpetual transformation. From this perspective, each work can thus exist in several simultaneous states, between conception, sketch, model and mock-up, testing and presentation.

Its public presentation thus becomes a platform where different temporalities coexist, illustrating a dynamic in which the work adapts and transforms in response to interactions with its environment. The Creation in Progress project explores artistic work as a process in perpetual motion, where creation is perceived as constantly evolving research rather than as an end goal.

An exhibition with multiple temporalities, where time unfolds in a ramified manner and superimposes different temporal layers. The various artistic interventions in such a context are not frozen in a specific moment, but evolve between thought and its projections, models, sketches and interactions with the public.

Research, development, adjustments, adaptations and questioning are all stages that characterise the artistic process. Each work, whether intended for public space or remaining in the studio, embodies a complex journey in which each phase of the artistic work is a significant moment of transformation, regardless of its final form.

Rather than presenting finished works, the exhibition features installations that reveal both their genesis and evolution, from their conception to their placement in space. These interventions are structured like stagings of a particular yet indetermined moment in the process.

Three distinct positions occupy the exhibition spaces with proposals that develop around the boundaries between studio research, potential works, and their public presentation. One could imagine a certain indeterminacy floating and wandering through the spaces, opening up a space for the disruption of fixed meanings.

The notion of creation in progress thus refers to a certain zone of indeterminacy, a suspended time that is neither past nor future, but always awaiting realisation. From this perspective, the works on display can be read and viewed as one potential moment of actualisation among many others.

Emilie Ding's work unfolds in a minimalist and imposing aesthetic inspired by the formal language of building physics and its metaphorical potential. Marked by a strong physical presence, her works engage with and challenge the structures they reflect. The artist's contribution refers directly to the installation Erased (2019) that she presented in the Crosnier Room of the Palais de l'Athénée in Geneva.

"It all started with the idea of a cemetery for works of art. A vision, more precisely, because it wasn't necessarily something that had to be realised. [...] I put forward the idea of a sculpture cemetery, which raised questions about the ontology of a work: at what point does the work cease to be what it is?"

Markus Kummer is an artist whose research and artistic work develop analytically. His constantly evolving practice is reflected in his works, where multiple perspectives intersect and engage in constant dialogue. His work is inspired by and unfolds at the intersection of disciplines such as art, architecture, design and archaeology.

His approach is based on experimentation, which he views as a dynamic playground where rules are created, evolve and overlap throughout the process. The approach does not follow a linear progression, but branches out, with each stage feeding into the next in a movement where ideas gradually constitute the work. His work is thus an exploration of the notions of balance and measure through the representation and interpretation of landscape.

Markus Kummer's intervention appears as architecture in the making. It reflects the way his work unfolds: a space for exploration where works coexist with the different stages of the creative process, where experimentation gradually shapes the work, and where creation is only temporarily frozen in a final state. Kummer's work questions the principles that govern the construction and organisation of space. Stone, in its geological, archaeological, historical and symbolic dimensions, occupies an essential place in this reflection, not as a simple material, but as an element that questions established norms and structures.

Through it, the artist confronts the material, with its irregularities and archaeological memory, with brick, a standardised and rationalised unit of measurement in architectural construction. While stone is part of natural processes and an extended temporality, brick, the result of a desire for regularisation, imposes a standardised language of measurement. This confrontation highlights the way in which we organise and perceive the space around us, while opening up perspectives on alternatives and new units of measurement that could redefine our relationship with architecture and the environment.

During the Erased exhibition in 2019, pieces resembling architectural elements littered the floor. These are forms that contain a potential utility, that of supporting the fields of tension of the places that house them. I decided to display them on the floor, inactive, and simply let their intrinsic function speak for itself. I felt that this was a way for them to strive towards something else, towards another state, suspended, in a state of waiting. [...]

In fact, I was already creating large-scale pieces related to architecture. They evoked a function of support, consolidation and conservation, and at the same time, the logistical issues they raised threatened the situation: their size and weight hinted at a possible failure, a necessary transformation.

Lang/Baumann is an artistic duo formed by Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann. Their artistic interventions explore the relationship between art, public space and architecture through monumental installations. Their approach combines aesthetic and social concerns, exploring themes such as movement, perception and the transformation of spaces. In 2011, to mark the 20th anniversary of the Friart art centre, L/B presented Comfort #6, an inflatable sculpture that encompassed the entire building.

Before being temporarily installed in Fribourg, Comfort #6 had been shown in very different geographical contexts such as Kagawa, Japan (2010), Bern (2009) and Madrid (2008). The geographical and temporal scope of Comfort #4 is even more remarkable, as it began its journey in Annemasse in 2007, continuing in the following years in Kaudorf (2008), Paris (2010), Môtiers (2011), Eindhoven (2012) and Istanbul (2015). As for Comfort #8, it was presented in Warsaw (2010) and Belgrade (2013) when L/B were invited to exhibit their work.

Comfort #13 travelled between Bellinzona (2015), Košice (2016) and finally Bern (2021), while Comfort #14 was installed on the façade of a building in Havana (2015) and, the following year, presented in Bratislava (2016). Comfort #15 has so far been shown in Aarau (2017), Comfort #18 and Comfort #20 were activated in Annecy (2019) and Paris (2022) respectively. To conclude the mapping of the sculptures presented in this exhibition, Comfort #21 was activated in Teufen (2023) and Bergen (2023).