The Zurich artist, winner of the prestigious Meret Oppenheim prize, unfolds a whole world in constant metamorphosis, populated by hybrid beings and ancestral shadows bathed in bright lights.
On the poster for Klodin Erb's exhibition "Un citron dans la peau," one can contemplate a glowing red sky through the tops of fir trees in a dark forest. The sumptuous beauty of the painting is echoed by a whole world of ancestral shadows that populate collective memory, the darkness lurking at the heart of founding narratives, Grimm brothers' fairy tales, and legends that have defined the boundaries of our imaginations, between inside and outside, between domestic and wild... This image is found overlooking, hung high on the walls of the Ferme-Asile barn. Like a cathedral rose window opening onto a mysterious world.
The deployment of an inner world
But when you climb the stairs opening onto the immense exhibition space, it is the Zurich artist's entire inner world that unfolds. Accompanied by a soundtrack of an audio piece recorded and created by the artist specifically for the exhibition. Declining the imagery of Little Red Riding Hood into an exquisite corpse, Klodin Erb offers the sound of tinkling bells, snippets of nursery rhymes, and voices, including her own, which delivers a gentle yet disturbing litany. A funfair sensation is supported by the central installation, "Wolfslaterne" (Wolf's Lantern), a large magic lantern that projects onto the walls and immense unbleached canvases—symbolizing a vegetal setting—a moving, living scene in vibrant pop colors, yet inhabited by silhouettes that are both familiar and unsettling: wolves, ghosts, humans—our own shadows joining the dance. "There is always an ambivalence in Klodin Erb's work... You never know if you are in a nursery or a nightclub," notes curator Céline Eidenbenz.
Constant hybridizations
Everything here questions the interdependencies between the living, vegetal, animal, and human realms... The collection of drawings on the wall declines the figure of a lemon, which has become totemic for the artist. The ovoid shape, the acidity under the skin, the burn beneath the sweetness. From a distance, the whole gives the feeling of facing the window of a tattoo studio. Up close, one understands the mischievous symbolic play around this citrus fruit, which seems to lend itself impertinently to all hybridizations—planet, breast, hat—consuming itself to be reborn. Further on, a panoptic installation plunges visitors into a new circular setting. "Elf Hauben" (Eleven bonnets) is directly inspired by the novel series The Handmaid's Tale and presents eleven bonnets alone, devoid of heads. In the middle of the circle, by looking at the bonnets from left to right, a printed movement is perceived, that of refusal. Refusal of submission, of the imposed order. These bonnets are themselves painted on lambskin and attached with horsehair...
Aesthetic perfection and density of the subject
The exhibition "Un citron dans la peau" offers the public the opportunity to immerse themselves in the meaning of the works at various depths, from the playful to the psychoanalytical. "Art must not be elitist, it must speak directly to people," Klodin Erb likes to say. A vision that is both humble and ambitious, which earned the Zurich artist the prestigious Meret Oppenheim prize, or Swiss Grand Award for Art, in 2022. Finally, it should be noted that several important events are organized around the exhibition. During the Night of the Museums on November 14, actress Kayije Kagame, winner of a Swiss Performing Arts Award, will give a performative reading of Eva Seck's "Dictionary," inspired by Klodin Erb's works. On December 10, essayist Marielle Macé will give a lecture around her book "Respire," accompanied by live drawings by illustrator Morgane Ischer.
"Un citron dans la peau" by Klodin Erb, at the Ferme-Asile barn, until January 10, 2027. Information at ferme-asile.ch
