Neige de Printemps
The exterior walls were covered in shiny white roughcast surface that surrounded the exhibition in a fantasy world of fictional buildings and weather. Neige de Printemps [Spring Snow] was a den of metaphors, inspired as much by ice floes, penthouses, houses, and villages as it was by refrigerators. The swiss artist Denis Savary (1981, Granges-Marnand) transformed the fourth floor into a polar expedition where native tribes paraded by, or into a high-society celebration on a roof deck, extravagant yet polite, caught in an unexpected cold snap. Wooden whale masks, Hokusai drawings made of metal hoops, a smashed primitive sculpture, mini leather steamer trunks—all gave the artist the opportunity to work with various tradesmen: locksmiths, carpenters, tanners, glass blowers, dress designers. The form thus became the subject of a dialogue drawing on different skill sets. As the work progressed, it acquired different stories. Together the pieces, mostly made especially for the exhibition, composed a sort of holiday stuffing, where each figure is filled to the brim to reveal unexpected flavors.