Inspiring talk by Silvie Defraoui held August 25th as part of the Le Foyer program and hosted by Last Tango. She spoke of the days where Geneva was a no-man's land for art with almost no institutions or galleries, on the development of "Média Mixte" namely the Mixed Media Studio that she and her husband Chérif Defraoui set up in 1975 at the Geneva School of Art and Design, how a bit of clairvoyance is also important for art-making, and much more!

Having worked extensively with slide projections and Super 8 video Silvie and Chérif Defraoui led the path for experimental video art in Switzerland in the 1970s and 80s. Working at the intersections between photography and sculpture, the husband-wife duo’s signature style of projections of found objects and personal mementos onto surfaces triggers a different understanding of an object’s physical presence and its image. This said, their practice spans mixed media, sculpture, installation, video and photography. Since the passing of Chérif Defraoui in 1994, Silvie continues to work.

Chérif and Silvie Defraoui

Cherif Defraoui was born in 1932 in Geneva and passed away in 1994 in Geneva. Silvie Defraoui was born in 1935 in St. Gallen, and lives and works in Vufflens-le-Château, Switzerland and Corbera de Llobregat, Spain. From 1975 to 1994 the artist duo worked and together they taught at the l'Ecole supérieure d'art visuel de Genève having established the Mixed Media Studio in 1975. Notable exhibitions include: Orient/Occident, Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève / Musée Rath, Geneva, 1989; Les origines de la description, Le Magasin – Centre National d’art Contemporain, Grenoble. Selected solo exhibitions by Silvie Defraoui include: Nacht und Tag und Nacht, Helmhaus, Zurich, 2000; Archives du future, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen & Musée d’art modern et contemporain, St. Gallen & Geneva, 2004-2005; Sombras electricas, Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris, 2009. She has won several awards including: Kulturpreis der Stadt St. Gallen, 2006; Prix de la Ville de Genève, 2007; Grand Prix de la Fondation Vaudoise pour la Culture, 2008.

LE FOYER – IN PROCESS

LE FOYER – IN PROCESS travels to current places of the contemporary art scene to talk with artists and their guests about work processes and their latest research. The focus lies on the work in progress – the unfinished. Please note: LE FOYER – IN PROCESS ACT 03 from February to June 2019