New spatial experiences
Serge Spitzer. «Re/Search (Alchemy and/or Question Marks with Swiss Air)» 1996 – 2002
Twenty-two years ago, Serge Spitzer was inspired by the entrance stairway of the Museum of Fine Arts Bern to an installation (“Stationen”, May 18 - July 8, 1984) which stimulated a whole new experience of spatiality and borders. The way he questions reality without offering answers but beckoning instead towards discoveries and irritants is stimulating, and appropriate to the respective context.Therefore nothing has changed with regard to his intention and hope of being able to show what is everyday, apparently recognized and well-known in a new, subversive light in order to awaken new processes of perception and thought. The staircase of the museum shows itself in a new perceptual dimension, buoyant and full of movement.
This installation was being redesigned and adapted by Serge Spitzer to a new space at Kunstmuseum Bern. The original concept was first shown at the Biennale in Lyon as “Re/Search (Bread and Butter with the ever present question of What is the Difference between a Croissant and a Baguette)”, 1996-1997, and under the current title in the Pavilion of the Swiss National Bank conceived by Harald Szeemann at the Expo.02 in Biel, Switzerland (2002). The installation “Re/Search (Alchemy and/or Question Marks with Swiss Air)” will now be on view till at least the end of 2007 in a room on the ground floor in the old wing (opened in 1879) of the museum. The transparent labyrinth of synthetic tubing sprawls throughout the room, creating an impassable tangle through which pneumatic tube systems transport air capsules by chance, in the hope of never colliding.
