Rachel K. Ward

Eispavillon, www.eispavillon.com
curated by Rachel K. Ward with Eveline Notter, 2003
with Ken Courtney, Olivier Mosset, saasfee*, Adam Schary, and Tobias Wong
Saas-Fee, Switzerland and re-presented at Art Unlimited / Art Basel, 2004

Above: Eispavillon, Toblorone, Olivier Mosset, 2003

Eispavillon exhibition images

Eispavillon curatorial statement:
Summer: a time for travel, exploration and leisure. With travel, is the choice of destinations and the potential of a tourist trap. Tourist traps are designed to attract impressionable travelers. The locations are advertised as accessible, but are typically far away from anywhere. They offer something invented for the tourist like "The Longest Thermometer," in the Nevada desert, "The City of Space," in provincial France and "The World's Largest Artificial Cave of Ice," 10 meters below the surface of a glacier in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. A group exhibition in the village and inside the ice cave at Saas-Fee, considers the relationship between tourism and contemporary art. One of the first known locations of art was inside a cave at Lascaux. In 2003, Lascaux is a tourist destination. EISPAVILLON takes the artificial cave in Switzerland, a skier's tourist attraction, as a site for reconsidering how tourism and art both involve publicity, commodification, and sacred space. The privileging and promotion of names and places, the large scale events and the historic locations make tourism and art co-conspirators. Four artists and one artist collective have been invited to respond to the situation.

Ken Courtney of Just Another Rich Kid Studios created work that responds to methods of promotion and advertising via the form of an exhibition poster. A person at a tourist trap is like a fashion victim: someone who has been seduced by advertisements and promotions. Tobias Wong of New York has designed artwork for the ice cave display box in the village of Saas-Fee and for the ice cave gift shop. Emerging Los Angeles artist Adam Schary has created a sound work for the gondola, broadcast during the eight minute ride to the mountain top. The ice cave hosts a "Toblerone" in ice by Swiss artist Olivier Mosset. The work is a minimalist sculpture that reconsiders the mid 20th century history of both Switzerland and art. Mosset's work was accompanied by a sculpture from the German collective with the name saasfee*. saasfee* has also designed an installation for the giftshop.

Like tourism, contemporary art is a highly promoted luxury of leisure. Like visual art, the tourist trap is a sham and yet, at times, utterly sincere. Eispavillon was advertised like any other tourist attraction, with a postcard seen above. The card includes a quote by the man who created the artificial cave, Benedikt Schnyder: "A glacier never lies and forgets." Eispavillon is located in the real mountain range of the Matterhorn, but the card shows a false glacier, the Matterhorn at Disnayland. Tourist destinations are presented with the most ideal shot of the location, so we choose Disney to represent the real thing. The real Eispavillon is a remote place, a place that never lies and forgets to those willing to travel to see it first.

RKW June, 2003