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WORDS, WORKS, WORLDS Recent works by Sophie Bouvier Ausländer 7th October to 12th December 2020

Installation view at Patrick Heide Contemporary Art

How do you feel? / The Financial Times series (SBAFT20200302) Gouache on waxed newspaper 66 x 53 cm 2020

Radar (SBAR20200905) Gouache on waxed map 116 x 94 cm 2020 € 7.800 incl. VAT & frame (no glazing)

Installation view at Patrick Heide Contemporary Art

Sophie Bouvier Ausländer’s point of departure for her artistic practice is nothing less than our planet, which can be considered as the sculpture par excellence.

Bouvier Ausländer is interested in the tangibility of things. Her creations are arcane, often rudimentary and transitory. The Swiss artist eliminates, disrupts or perforates the structure of the objects she works with. One needs to closely inspect them to understand what is hidden beneath the surface, under painted road maps, shredded world map collages or subscribed plasticine sculptures.

Radar (SBAR20200903) Gouache on waxed map 85 x 57 cm 2020

Austerlitz/Radar (SBAAR20200303) Gouache on waxed map and tissue paper 90 x 123 cm 2020 € 7.800 incl. VAT & frame

Installation view at Patrick Heide Contemporary Art

The series entitled Radar employs aerial maps, inspired by the gift of a collector friend. Diagonal corridors that simulate flight routes abandon the grid often prevalent in her former Avalanche series. The map’s differing function as a route map sparked visual shifts resulting in dynamic, interlacing compositions. The historical notion of navigating only “as far as you can see� chimes with current times of obscured views into the future. In her new series Bouvier reworks the surfaces vigorously, adding colour or darkening it by reheating. The outcome are deeper and varying tonalities within pulsating and more dexterous images, whose handling and flaking, extraction and revelation process consequently intensifies.

Radar (SBAR20200904) Gouache on waxed map 145 x 105 cm 2020

Radar (SBAR20200901) Gouache on waxed map 80.5 x 50.5 cm 2020 € 4.800 incl. VAT & frame

Avalanche (SBA20170659) Gouache on waxed map 201 x 143 cm 2017 € 15.000 incl. VAT

Avalanche (SBA20170659) - detail

Radar (SBAR20200908) Gouache on waxed map 69.5 x 76.5 cm 2020 € 5.600 incl. VAT & frame

Installation view at Patrick Heide Contemporary Art

Much time of Sophie Bouvier Ausländer’s past years has been dedicated to words, namely her PHD at Slade London, culminating in her doctoral thesis on the notion of tangibility, contemporary reliefs and continuous dimensions.

The topic ties in with Bouvier’s preeminent, multi-faceted interest in our planet as a sculpture, present in all her bodies of work, and underlines the importance of understanding our world from an artistic viewpoint. Making Worlds, the title of Daniel Birnbaum’s 2006 Biennale, expressed the desire to launch a new beginning from existing parameters, a credo Bouvier very much shares. To complement her thesis at Slade, Bouvier presented a work not surprisingly entitled Ways of World Making\Self Portrait.

A freestanding, octagonally shaped library, it consists of all the publications she read and researched to nourish her thesis. Every book has an individually created opening within a structure of connected yet moveable walls that can be experienced while navigating around it. An autobiographical sculpture, visually permeable, whose information is accessible beneath the surface, while having to dig deeper to explore its depths and mysteries.

Ways of Worldmaking MDF, books 216 x 550 cm 2019 POA

Ways of Worldmaking – detail

Austerlitz/Radar (SBAAR20200305) Gouache on waxed map and tissue paper 93.5 x 118 cm 2020 € 8.000 incl. VAT & frame

Austerlitz/Radar (SBAAR20200305) – detail

In her Austerlitz series, Bouvier reuses the crumbling paint parts, a sediment of the artistic process, to apply them on tissue paper and mirror the elaborated map as a fragile negative.

Other Available Works

Avalanche (SBA20170800) Gouache on waxed map, dismantled atlas, 42 pages 235 x 193 cm 2017 â‚Ź 18.000 incl. VAT & frame (no glazing)

Avalanche (SBA20170800) - detail

Avalanche (SBA20170412) Gouache on waxed map 141.5 x 99 cm 2017 € 8.500 incl. VAT

Avalanche (SBA04120301) Gouache on waxed map 120 x 96 cm 2017 € 7.000 incl. VAT

Avalanche (SBAA20200913) Gouache on waxed map 112 x 98 cm 2020 € 7.500 incl. VAT

Bouvier’s small and large-scale waxed maps from the previous and older Avalanche series are covered with paint and then scratched and scribbled into with abstract shapes or grids, and then sometimes recovered with paint drippings. Exposing hints of the underlying countries, oceans, cities and borders, one tries to decipher and rediscover familiar environments, names and signs. This way Bouvier Ausländer keeps our curiosity and familiarity alive while she manages to produce almost entirely new objects that recharge the existing ones.

Radar (SBAR20200907) Gouache on waxed map 112 x 89 cm 2020 € 7.000 incl. VAT

Radar (SBAR20200907) – detail

Radar (SBAR20200910) Gouache on waxed map 79.5 x 50 cm 2020 € 4.500 incl. VAT

Radar (SBAR20191001) Gouache on waxed map 80 x 79.5 cm 2019 € 5.600 incl. VAT

Recently Bouvier moved from aerial to geological and topographical maps, which reveal more contrasting colour charts when worked on and exposed.

Endorsing the actions of layering and erosion, Bouvier began to superimpose colour flakings of different works, rendering the “geology� of her oeuvre increasingly complex.

Radar (SBAR20200909) Gouache on waxed map 56 x 74.5 cm 2020 € 4.500 incl. VAT

Since Covid-19, Bouvier has worked on a new series entitled The Financial Times series, emulating the freer use of colour and gestures. Skin coloured papers, containing news on our global instability, are again covered, then harmed and laid bare, yet simultaneously recharged, rearranging our postpandemic world and vision.

How do you feel? / The Financial Times series (SBAFT20200301) Gouache on waxed newspaper 125 x 111 cm 2020 € 8.200 incl. VAT

How do you feel? / The Financial Times series (SBAFT20200303) Gouache on waxed newspaper 87 x 70 cm 2020 € 5.800 incl. VAT & frame

Radar (SBAR20200301a&b) Gouache on waxed map 145.5 x 105.5 cm each, diptych 2020 € 16.000 incl. VAT

Radar (SBAR20200301a) – diptych left Gouache on waxed map 145.5 X 105.5 cm 2020

Radar (SBAR20200301b) – diptych right Gouache on waxed map 145 x 105.5 cm 2020

Radar (SBAR20200306) Gouache on waxed map 112 x 100 cm 2020 € 7.500 incl. VAT

Radar (SBAR20200306) – detail

“Rarely you end up working with an artist that you meet at the booth of an art fair. Sophie was almost blushing when she complimented me on the integrity and beauty of our booths over the past years. Of the many unsolicited catalogues sent to the gallery I had kept hers to review as I was somehow intrigued. Then a close gallery client, after previewing another fair, brought me to the booth of Sophie’s Swiss gallery, and it finally all made sense. Sophie’s fascination with mapping and maps reaches a depth unsurpassed in that medium. The texture and sensuality of her surfaces mirror her philosophical approach and I suppose her character as well; multifaceted and gentle, yet determined.”

(Patrick Heide)

Austerlitz/Radar (SBAAR20200912) – Studio Installation Gouache on waxed map 122 x 140 cm 2020 € 9.000 incl. VAT

SOPHIE BOUVIER AUSLÄNDER

Born in 1970, Switzerland Lives and works in Lausanne, Switzerland, and London, UK Education

1989-90 1990-92 1998-2000 2013-19

École cantonale d’art de Lausanne, ECAL (École Cantonale d’Art Lausanne), foundation year École nationale supérieure d’arts visuels de la Cambre, Painting department, Brussels Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, London; Textile Design, Design for Textile Futures, PGDip with distinction Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, London, PhD (part-time), led research (On Tangibility / contemporary reliefs and continuous dimensions)

Selected Solo Exhibitions

2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2014 2013 2012 2010 2009

Words, Works, Worlds, Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, London (upcoming) Words, Works, Worlds, Galerie Heinzer Reszler, Lausanne Mare Vostrum, Musée des beaux-arts du Locle, Le Locle Avalanche, Davidson Contemporary, New York Night Shift, solo booth with Galerie Heinzer Reszler, Art Genève, Geneva Resident, Galerie Heinzer Reszler, Lausanne Avalanche, Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, London Avalanche, Fondation Louis Moret, Martigny The Snake of Maloja, Galerie Sobering, Paris Tepid Water, The Great Pacific War, Galerie Heinzer Reszler, Lausanne Lost, Galerie Heinzer Reszler, Lausanne Hotel Ausland, Musée d’art de Pully A Space Odyssey, Galerie Heinzer Reszler, Brussels Le Monde comme sculpture, Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne Persogéo, Espace Echallens 13, Lausanne Linea, Galerie davel14 with Gilles Porret (édition), Cully essetiV, Centre d’art, L’Attrape-Couleurs, Lyon Originel, Fondation Louis Moret, Martigny

Selected Group Exhibitions

2019

2018 2017 2016 2015

2014 2013 2012

We are small/Carnets d'artistes, Centre d'art Ferme Asile, Sion Atlas. A cartography of Donation, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne Women to Watch / Paper Work, Sotheby’s London, London Should I Stay or Should I Go?, Patrick Heide Contemporary Art, London Redress, UCL Art Museum, London Over het verlangen en de troost, Watou Kunst Festival Richochet, Centre d’Art Contemporain d’Yverdon-Les-Bains Das Esszimmer, Weltraum, Basel The Intercontinental, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL and Roaming Room, London Climax, Galerie Heinzer Reszler, Lausanne Dimensione Disegno. Posizione Contemporanee, Villa dei Cedri, Bellinzone Charcoal Works, Hardwick Gallery, University of Gloustershire Lignes (É)mouvantes with Gary Woodley, Gallery Épisodique, Paris Harnessing the Wind, Beaconsfield, London, with Ellie Harris, Monika Oechsler and Naomi Siderfin Je me souviens du génocide arménien, La Traverse - CAC, Alfortville Departures, European House, London Quand L’Art se livre, Musée des Beaux-Arts du Locle Trait Papier, un essai sur le dessin contemporain, Centre d’art d’Yverdon-les-Bains and Kunsthalle Palazzo Liestal Atlas at last, grandes galeries ESADHaR, Rouen

Public art Commissions

2013 2011 2010

Ways of Worldmaking, cultural percent commissioned by the State of Vaud, architects Dettling Péléraux, Gymnase du Grand Ouest, Renens, CH, completed in 2016 UPSIDE DOWN, cultural percent commissioned by Mobimo, Av. d’Ouchy 4-6. Lausanne Prolifics, cultural percent, commissioned by the State of Vaud, architects Galletti & Matter, Institut Galli-Valerio, Contrôle Cantonal des Finances, Lausanne Bound and Torn, Grange-Canal, comissioned by the City of Geneva Pollens, cultural percent commissioned by the State of Vaud, architect Alain Wolf, Fondation Echaud, home les Esserts, Cugy Copy – cut – paste – delete, Fondation Lausannoise pour L’Art Contemporain et le Fond des Arts Plastiques de la Ville de Lausanne, commissioned by the City of Lausanne

Collections

Musée Jenisch Vevey (don de la Fondation Lélo Fiaux), Switzerland Cleveland Clinic, USA Frankel Collection, USA Crédit Suisse, Switzerland Caldic Collectie, Wassenaar, The Netherlands Musée d’Art Pully, Switzerland Musée des Beaux-Arts du Locle, Switzerland Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland Fonds d’art visual (F.A.V.) de la ville d’Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland Fonds des Arts Plastiques de la ville de Lausanne, Switzerland Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois, Lausanne, Switzerland Banque Bordier & Co, Lausanne Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, Lausanne, Switzerland Gymnase Cantonal du Bugnon, Lausanne, Switzerland