11 Sep 2014

Vanessa Billy— Permeate at KMD – Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp

A puddle, a pool of what seems to be clear liquid in its solid state. If we take a closer look, we can recognize batteries and tablets. Energy Weak brings together sources of energy that originally come from nature and, in their outward appearance when processed, are altogether similar to one another. The clear, solidified liquid looks like water in its frozen state – all elements together constitute a cycle: different materials, which originally needed water for their making, ultimately find their way back into the water again.

Solid matter, substances, plastic particles and hormones float about in the rivers and oceans; while they are not recognizable for the human eye, they are an invisible vehicle of information on a whole chain of processes that take place in industrial manufacturing plants. Energy Weak is a footnote, so to speak, an afterthought on Marcel Duchamp's last work Étant ­donnés: 1° la chute d'eau, 2° le gaz d'éclairage. It combines elements that at first glance seem to have hardly anything in common with one another. Found objects often constitute the starting points of Billy's works. They operate as catalysts that enable the artist to relate to the material itself, to the way it functions and to the way it reacts to other materials.

Nadine Wietlisbach


Vanessa Billy (*1978) studied at the Chelsea College in London; today she lives and works in Zurich. She has shown her works in solo exhibitions at the Kunsthaus Baselland, at the Photographer's Gallery in London, at the Limoncello Gallery in London, at Collective, Edinburgh, and at the BolteLang Galerie in Zurich. Her works have also been shown in group exhibitions at the Lisson Gallery, London, the SMOCA, Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona, and the Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau.

Nadine Wietlisbach (*1982) holds the post of curator at the Nidwaldner Museum in Stans and manages the independent art space Sic! Raum für Kunst in Lucerne. She regularly contributes to art exhibition catalogues and writes reviews for various periodicals, including Kunst-Bulletin, Schweizer Monat, ArtEnsuite and Kulturmagazin 041. Together with Camillo Paravicini and Simone Gschwend she publishes books through the Maniac Press, Lucerne.