The things we keep

Jérémie Gindre weaves new narratives by creating a dialogue be-tween them and works of his own. Similar to a Happy Families game, some 60 ‘playing cards’ - paintings, drawings, photos, objects, sculptures – form consonant groups in each room of the Villa Bernasconi. Brought together for the duration of the exhibition according to specified themes, the works are freed from their historic and artistic origins and guided towards different associations of ideas. In a similar vein, Anaïs Wenger has opted to take a selection of Lancy landscape paintings for a walk. Placed in a cloakroom, they will later be confronted with the current reality of their surroundings during meetings with the public. The art collection of the town of Lancy is made up of gifts, legacies and acquisitions. Even though this heterogenous collection does not have a clearly defined concept, it is a reflection of local roots. It is witness to the great changes this territory has undergone during the century and a half covered by the exhibition. We find as many marvels as in any basement or attic because the value of the objects is due also to their curiosities, details, coincidences and the stories they tell or initiate. Following this rather illogical logic, the works of Jérémie Gindre presented here are amongst those that he has chosen to keep in his workshop over the last fifteen years. They are escapees from works created for public spaces, books and exhibitions and are now blending together with these collections, unmatched but related, in each room of the house. Anaïs Wenger, for her part, has chosen to use paintings from the collection whose point in common is a picturesque site in the region. Called to return to the places which had inspired them, these works wait patiently to leave the cloakroom alongside their close and distant neighbours. On D-day, they will rejoin their original places and tell us what there is to tell. Each in its own way, these items that have been kept (the Things which no longer serve anything but remind of the past to quote the title of Sei Shônagon’s poem) are those that are not necessarily conserved because they have a high value, are significant or of historical importance, but because they are capable of touching us or of causing us to speak.