"Is it art?"  And then the natural follow-on "What is Art?" This is the chain of reaction that ignites the minute I am confronted with highly conceptual art.  And such reaction, despite the fact that much of 20^th century art has swung on this squeaky hinge, continues to vex, to compel me into the experience.

I think we can all agree that Smart is terribly hard to pull off, especially when it boils down to a one liner. I guess it is best said that smart is in the mind of the beholder, but it takes courage, or perhaps arrogance, to posit that a coil of bailing wire placed just so on a white wall does hold weight and substance. I look; I like. But why for god's sake? Is this a discussion of labor or constraint? Zen aesthetic or political statement?  Am I being asked to enjoy a black circle on the wall or to shuck off the binding chains of object love? Hard to tell. I stand before the mock stretcher bars of a painting done in brown ribbon and wonder if painting is finally dead, no longer able to support itself. Or maybe it is now considered woman’s work.

I circle to the sound piece, a large black speaker a la rock concert turned on its side jauntily holding court at the forefront of the gallery. I wait and listen. A drum roll builds louder and louder moving towards its final moment until – nothing – the punctuating finish (a pow on the cymbals) has been removed.  A lot of fanfare but no defining point - like shooting blanks. Perhaps that is the point.  These and other questions may be a reason to go to this exhibit, and to ponder. Aloïs Godinat was born in 1978 in Geneva, Switzerland.  He lives and works in Lausanne, Switzerland.

--Georgia Fee, Editor in Chief, living in Paris

(Images: Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chez Valentin)