Media Release 2020 Manor Art Award Aarau

Media Release Aarau, April 2019 Denise Bertschi 2020 Manor Art Award Aarau Denise Bertschi (b. 1983 in Aarau) is the recipient of the 2020 Manor Art Award Aarau which is presented every two years to promote young Swiss art. The award comes with a solo exhibition at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, which opens on Friday, 24 January 2020. In her artistic practice, Denise Bertschi uses events of recent history to critically question Switzerland’s relationship to the rest of the world. She addresses, for example, Switzerland’s colonial involvement or reflects on the concept of neutrality, which forms both the internal and external perception of Switzerland, yet also raises many questions. For her research, Bertschi repeatedly visits the regions she examines in her works. She drove into the de-militarised zone between North and South Korea where Swiss military observers have been stationed for years; she spent time in Brazil where, in the northeast of the country, one of the largest coffee plantations of the nineteenth century had been run by Swiss. Recently, the artist was in South Africa where she looked into Switzerland’s relations to the apartheid state. Denise Bertschi talks to the local people, to people who witnessed the period, to decision makers and/or their descendants. She documents the places she visits, the nature and architecture, in photographs and video footage. She is just as much interested in visual details, in the beautiful, the striking and the bizarre. Prior to and during her travels, Bertschi visits archives, reads, collects and records correspondences, images, newspaper clippings, etc.. In the process, the accessibility of the archives and the archive work itself also become subjects. The extensive collections of impressions, encounters, documentations and facts are the starting point of Bertschi’s video installations, photographs, objects and publications. Particular importance is attached to the found, collaged image – as a projection, wall-sized as mounted wallpaper, printed on textile or laid out in book form. Often, she creates multiple works related to a particular subject. In keeping with the multi-perspectivity, the artist aims at a rereading of history based on social, ethnic or feminist points of view. In this way, her works provide insights into the narrated connections which are owed less to the rigour of a historical approach than to the experiences of the protagonists and to challenging one’s own Western European ways of thinking and seeing. A Commitment to the Young Swiss Art Scene One of the most important advancement awards for contemporary art in our country, the Manor Art Award was established in 1982 by Philippe Nordmann to offer a platform for young Swiss artists. Every year, a jury of experts awards it in six Swiss cities, with Aarau, Basel, Biel, Chur, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano, Lucerne, Schaffhausen, Sion, St. Gallen and Winterthur alternating every two years. A look at the list of awardees reveals that the Manor Art Award has contributed to the international breakthrough of a whole slew of artists, including Luciano Castelli (1984 Art Award Lucerne), Marie José Burki (1993 Art Award Geneva), Pipilotti Rist (1994 Art Award St. Gallen) and Lena Maria Thüring (2013 Art Award Basel). The presentation of the award to Denise Bertschi will take place during the exhibition opening on Friday, 24 January 2020. Along with the exhibition comes an accompanying publication. Denise Bertschi was born in 1983 in Aarau. She studied visual arts at the Haute école d'art et de design (HEAD) in Geneva (MA) and visual communication at the Zurich University of the Arts (BA). She is currently completing her doctorate at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) in Lausanne (in partnership with HEAD). She lives and works in Lausanne. Selected Solo Exhibitions: Neutrality as an Agent, ARTIVIST Johannesburg (2018); Forever or in a Hundred Years, *ALTEFABRIK. Gebert Stiftung für Kultur, Rapperswil (2018, together with Inas Halabi); film screening: Namibia Rawcut, Lokal-int, Biel/Bienne (2018) Selected Group Exhibitions: Swiss Art Awards, Messehalle Basel (2019); Mobile Welten, oder Das Museum für unsere transkulturelle Gegenwart, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (2018); Kaffee aus Helvécia, Johann Jacobs Museum, Zürich (2017);(my vegetable love should grow), One Gee in a Fog, Geneva (2017); Auswahl 16, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau (2016); How to Waste time, with Denise Bertschi, Kunstverein Zürich, MANIFESTA 11, Parallel Events (2016); COLD.WAR.HOT.STARS, Corner College, Zürich (2015); Territories of Assembly, Artsonje Art Center, Seoul (2014); Mandatory Passivity, LiveInYourHEAD, HEAD, Geneva (2014) Selected Awards and Grants: Schönste Schweizer Bücher, for the publication WE SAY WE ARE FINE. THEY SAY WE ARE NOT (2018); Pro Helvetia studio residency in Johannesburg (2017); NAB Förderpreis 2016, Auswahl 16 (2016); studio residency Fundaziun Nairs Zentrum für Gegenwartskunst, Scuol/Engadin (2016) For additional information please contact: Yasmin Afschar, Curator tel. +41 (0)62 835 57 52, email: [email protected] Christina Omlin, Communication/Media tel. +41 (0)62 835 44 79, email: [email protected] .

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