Artists: Linus Baumeler, Elischa Heller, Cyril Tyrone Hübscher, Lino Meister
Exhibition title: A Drop Meant To Become A Stalactite, But Fell On The Seeker’s Torch
Venue: KRONE COURONNE, Biel/Bienne, Switzerland
Date: January 20 – March 11, 2023
Photography: © Michal Florence Schorro/ all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and KRONE COURONNE, Biel/Bienne
Note: Exhibition’s floor plan is available here
“The shape of a cave. Enveloped by darkness. Our voices echoing of the walls. We are afraid to speak. We see nothing. Nothingness spreads around us. But in this nothing we find what we did not know existed. In our bodies we begin to feel the rhythms, faintly at first. We tend to them and now we hear other voices, not our ones, but of those who have come before. We feel the hunger deep within us. The melodies ancient, secret, buried, now pulsate within us. And we can feel those who came before us, and before them, and before. The hunger deepening. Back to the beginning. The shape of a cave. Space divided and not divided, space turning in on itself, transforming.” –Nancy Tuana (1994)
Emerging from the pores of the rock, the drop has been lingering among the bats on the cave’s ceiling for many hours. Enriched with lime, it hangs in the depths, waiting to slowly solidify in time with the subsiding humidity. Melting into the rock in the continuity of the drops that preceded it, the drop wants to become part of the cave; a cave that oscillates between this world and the next, between origin and end, between sensual perception and spiritual abstraction. It is a patient and at the same time risky wait, as a somewhat too energetic flapping of a bat’s wings or a gust of wind penetrating into the depths can finish it off and abruptly tear it out of this petrifaction it so eagerly hopes for. The drop does not yet know that this time it will be a fine yet sooty smoke that will tickle it out of its stone-becoming and irrevocably shift its fate in another direction.
This smoke came from afar or far above, snaking its way in with the torch’s footfall-seeking advance through the entrance into the cave, the hole, the pit, the ditch, the room (of one’s own), the atelier or the space for thought. Wherever the smoke grazed the rock, it left a subtle tint, unwittingly marking traces in nearly complete darkness. The torch searches for the origin. The origin of the cave, the origin of people and, for Georges Bataille, also the origin of art: “’Lascaux Man’“, writes Bataille, “created – created out of nothing – this world of art in which communication between individual minds begins”(1955).
-Selma Meuli
About the artists
Linus Baumeler (*1992, lives and works in Biel/Bienne) works between the mediums of drawing and sculpture, investigating their materiality and perception. Exploring the physical aspect of drawing with the variety of his painterly, in situ and sculptural work, Baumeler mediates thoughts and observations with a distinctly soft approach. Spontaneous yet profoundly reflected decisions shape his works, from the brushstrokes to the frames. Graduated with a BA in Fine Arts at the Institut Kunst in Basel–after the preparatory course at the school of design in Biel/Bienne–, he exhibited in several exhibitions including Pasquart (Biel/Bienne), Lokal-int (Biel/Bienne), Sttatelkammer (Bern), Kunsthaus Baselland, etc.
Cyril Tyrone Hübscher (*1993, lives and works in Frankfurt) works on the relationship between people and the spaces that they artificially create and inhabit. Using cheap materials, such as cardboard, tape and wood, he produces sculptures, drawings and installations. He focuses not only on materials and architecture but above all on the examination of human needs and desires. After the preparatory course at the school of design in Biel/Bienne, Cyril obtained his BA in Fine Arts in Basel and is currently attending the Städelschule in Frankfurt. His works was shown at Kunsthalle Basel, Display 8803 (Zurich), HOBO (Vienna), Pasquart (Biel/Bienne), Kunsthaus Langenthal, Grandpalais (Bern), Daniele Agostini (Lugano), etc.
Elischa Heller (*1994, lives and works in Zurich) is a sound and performance artist. As a member of bands such as Film 2 and Tanche, he investigates the conceivable boundaries of noise and rock. His solo EP “Unsere Kanten sind aus Samt” was released on BlauBlau Records in 2021 and he performs at art spaces like TOXI and festivals like Bad Bonn Kilbi.
Lino Meister (*1996, lives and works in Bern) works as a chef and artist. The launch of Vivaconterra, a project for the appreciation and distribution of non-standard vegetables, opened up his need for a longer-term engagement with sustainable agriculture as the basis of a local food culture. This is expressed in formats such as Tavolate, performative works and catering for film productions. The collection and preservation of wild and cultivated plants, as well as the artisanal production of ferments such as miso paste are important components of this. Lino realises the projects in collaboration with collectives, individual artists as well as independently.
