Patrick Weidmann

Born in 1956 in Geneva, he lives there.

Through his activities involving writing and photography, the Swiss artist challenges the mythologies of post-industrial society. Cut-outs, assemblages, photographic enlargements: by transforming consumables into signs, Patrick Weidmann reveals the visual machinery of advertising people, rails against “bimboplasty” (the title of one of his most recent books), at work in our consumer society, and exacerbates the relations of seduction, not to say fetishization, that we have with these objects.

What does the festival’s subtitle “Here where I am doesn’t exist” mean to you?
Actually, this proposition is based on the old semantic postulate of upsurge, or sudden development, always possible precisely where you’re no longer waiting to expect it. I’ll confirm that it keeps all its promises, provided that lost illusions have remained intact.

What does art help you accomplish?
A kind of perfect crime, where the proof and the clues have only served as dessert, and the alibi, a rum baba, seemingly ordinary, is still in the display stand.