Painting Exhibition in IDHEAP

From 18th November to 22d December 2004, I had the opportunity to exhibit my paintings in the Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration (IDHEAP) in Chavannes-près-Renens near Lausanne. It was the third public show of my artistic work after a first collective exhibition together with other students of the Higher School of Arts at the Centre of Contemporary Art of Geneva and a personal show held 1986 in the Windsor Community Arts Centre in Great Britain, followed by a long interruption of my artistic activity.

After following a wide range of courses at IDHEAP, I graduated as Master of Public Administration and joined the Association of the Alumni1996. Through the years I established a relationship of trust with many people working at IDHEAP, so that the Director of the Institute, Professor Jean-Loup Châpelet, proposed that I exhibit my paintings there after I had shown him an overview of my works.

The exhibition involved intense preparation: I sent 800 invitations to the private viewing. I also framed 13 pictures and fixed on a board 25 little images forming a bigger whole. The transport with a rented van was only a small but exciting part of the preparations. From IDHEAP, MS Myriam Scherer, Studies Secretary, was very supportive.

D day – the private view – came on 17th November. I was really touched by the warm reception by IDHEAP people: my former teachers, their assistants and other members of the staff. I myself was happy to meet friends and colleagues who had the kindness to come and see my works.

A Little Scandal

One picture stirred up emotions, Homage to Heiner Müller, a rather strong work in black, red and white, permuting death's heads and Kalashnikovs as well as tragic and comic masks. The legend (quotation of a German dramaturge Heiner Müller) "crowns" the whole: "Die Revolution ist die Maske des Todes, der Tod ist die Maske der Revolution" ("revolution is the mask of death, death is the mask of revolution"). I conceived this painting without thinking about provocation, but reflecting on the history of the countries affected by the revolution, like Poland, my fatherland. The quotation of Heiner Müller from the play “The Contract” had worked on me for years before I found a matching pictorial idea. The death’s heads, a constant in my work, refer to the Vanitas motive, prevailing in baroque art for example, and including the still life genre, common nowadays. The Kalashnikov could not be missing in a work intending a critical allusion to the revolution. The masks refer to the theatre and to its history (the original is a genuine Carthaginian mask).

Nevertheless, the painting provoked a strong reaction of rejection. One professor refused to teach in the same room with it. So a Solomonic decision was made and the picture was displaced to a less exposed place. I only regretted not to have been informed about it: to my surprise, I discovered the whole plot while visiting the exhibition with friends. Long live communication!