Møt den sveitsiske samtidskunstneren Yves Scherer. Tidligere har vi vist en utstilling med kunstneren i hvelvet på Formues kontor i Henrik Ibsensgate i Oslo. Intervjuet er på engelsk.
5 questions with Yves Scherer
What inspires you?
I’m mostly inspired by other art. Looking at the works of other painters makes you want to go and paint and it’s the same for sculptors.
How did the fascination with popular culture begin?
I think my interest in popular culture really began when I moved to London. Maybe the german speaking part of Europe is more soaked in tradition and cultural history that is critical of the presumed flatness and profane that pop culture brings.
Can you tell us about the work ‘Little Mermaid’?
Little Mermaid is a stainless steel sculpture that has the body of a mermaid and the head of a young and short haired Emma Watson. It is part of a larger body of work of mine that takes her as a subject and deals with the implications and consequences of celebrity. The actress and outspoken advocat for gender equality here is portrayed as both an androgynous commanding figure and a male fantasy at the same time. In this way it plays with gender stereotypes while also forming a physical manifestation of the celebrity as a glossy surface for media and audience projections.
What do you think about love?
I love my cat, I love art and I love my girlfriend.
What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?
I’m very proud of the book we just made called “Soft Pop”. It features works from the last 9 or 10 years in a sort of artist book format and I think we killed it :)
About Yves Sherer
Yves Scherer deals with questions regarding gender, celebrity and mediate realities. Mainly working with media as sculptures, photography, collages, painting and lager installations. With this he creates immersive environment that combining his own personal narratives with fan fiction to offer the viewer often a romantic lense or perspective on the self, relationships and the everyday life. Interested in surfaces and screens, Scherer often uses tatami mats or fake grass cut outs as part of his work – a reference to the artist ́s own living habits and typical of this form of contemporary Arte Povera. His work explores issues concerning what is private and what is public.
Scherer’s work has been exhibited at international institutions and galleries such as Kunsthalle Basel, ICA London, Swiss Institute in NY and Kunstverein Wiesen. He is the recipient of a Förderpreis Bildende Kunst des Kanton Solothurn 2012, Swiss Art Award in 2015 and was listed on Forbes 30 under 30 “art and design” in the class of 2016.
About the works
Little Mermaid, 2020
Stainless steel
145 x 64 x 66,5 cm
For Little Mermaid, a mermaid’s tail has been merged with the torso and head of young British actress, model and activist Emma Watson. Watson, born in 1990 rose to prominence portraying Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter film series and has continued to work outside of it in different major motion pictures as well as a model in fashion campaigns for global brans. Just recently she was appointed as a UN Women Goodwill ambassador for the United Nations in which capacity she has helped launch a campaign titled HeForShe which calls for men to advocate for gender equality and female rights all over the world. While Watson has since remained pristine, childlike and untrained by the scandals of her profession she has been subject to assaults, obsessive observation and admiration from different corners of what one could call the Dark Web.
Untitled (Kate), 2018
Book ”Kate Moss by Mario Testino” – Taschen, wood and plexiglass
38 x 56 cm
The work Untitled (Kate) was first exhibited at GALLLERIAPIÙ, in the exhibition “The Last Of The English Roses”. The exhibition was named after a Pete Doherty song released in 2009 the show features a series of new wall works and an artist book produced for the occasion. It’s the unveiling of the thin layer between public and private life moments which often characterizes Scherer’s work and is continued in the pieces titled “Kate” here. Different pages from one single photography book with images of Kate Moss taken by Mario Testino and published by Taschen are tightly framed in wood and plexiglass boxes. The heroin-chic icon of the 90’s and now a successful mother and business woman is shown mainly between shoots here – in intimate moments which have her hover between the girl from Croydon and the celebrity star that she was made into. Made possible through Testino’s role as both celebrity photographer and her close friend.
Untitled (Beach), 2020
Oil on canvas
195 x 145 cm
The painting Untitled (Beach) was made in connection to the exhibition “Leaves of Grass”, which all works was made during the lockdown in the Bronx, US. Taking as a title the notorious book of Walt Wythman that developed a language to speak about the then-new country USA, the exhibition is a reflection on identity constructs and a musing on the idea of “home” as the place we are from as much as it’s also where one feels to belong at any given time. The large scale oil painting features a mix of Swiss landscape scenes that reference historical painters such as Hans Emmenegger and Cuno Amiet.
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