Towards No Earthly Pole, MASI Lugano, 2019

Towards No Earthly Pole
MASI Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland

27 October 2019 – 15 March 2020
Curated by Francesca Benini

All works by Julian Charrière. Installation view: Towards No Earthly Pole, MASI Lugano, Lugano, Switzerland, 2019. ©The Artist / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photos by Jens Ziehe.

Installation view: Towards No Earthly Pole, 2019, and Not All Who Wander Are Lost, 2019
Installation view: Towards No Earthly Pole, 2019, and Not All Who Wander Are Lost, 2019
Installation view: Towards No Earthly Pole, 2019, and Not All Who Wander Are Lost, 2019
Installation view: The Purchase of the South Pole
Installation view: The Purchase of the South Pole
And Beneath It All Flows Liquid Fire, 2019, film still

Titled Towards No Earthly Pole, the exhibition has been developed around the videowork of the same name, for which Julian Charrière explored remote places like the Rodano and Aletsch glaciers in Switzerland, Mont Blanc, Iceland and Greenland.

The exhibition at MASI has been conceived as a diorama that visitors can enter. With a projection at its centre, Charrière has created an environmental installation that transforms the entire exhibition space into a setting associated with the central subjects and themes of the videowork. The aim is to intensify the visitor’s involvement by means of a sensory experience, as well as the rapport between the observer and the landscape represented. The work Not All Who Wander Are Lost, newly produced for the MASI exhibition, includes local subjects, natural resources, and collaboration with Ticinese craftsmen. For the film And Beneath It All, Flows Liquid Fire, a neoclassical fountain in Lugano was set on fire.

The exhibition was subsequently presented in a modified version at the Aargauer Kunsthaus in Aarau in 2020 and at the Dallas Museum of Art in 2021.