Les dialogueur·euse·x·s.

Refresh, refresh

Direi qualcosa di autentico, et pourquoi pas en deuxième plan. L’architecture selon lui avait une fonction au service de la vérité. C’est tout.

Ah oui, c’est peut-être ça. C’est dans une sorte d’à-peu-près, il faut se donner des contraintes pour pouvoir reconstruire les filiations des dialogueur·euse·x·s

Oui, construisons une filiation, Kitty l’avait vu, l’avait expérimenté́ sur une grenouille.

C’était bizarre.

C’était vraiment une autre époque, les dialogueur.euse.x.s n’avaient pas encore découvert les autres trucs.

It all began with a list of fabrics and the mention of tende “opalina”, found during a research trip. With its slightly faded paper and timeless logo, the note indicates a collaboration between Italian textile designer Renata Bonfanti and architect Angelo Mangiarotti for the new interiors of Club 44. Though seemingly of lesser value than other documents such as plans or contracts, this archive is nonetheless a component of this story: that of relations between Northern Italy and La Chaux-de-Fonds in the 1950s and 1960s, set against a backdrop of innovative effervescence; that of the connections between representatives of different disciplines, who considered space, light, interior design, and furniture as a coherent whole¹ . The note informs about the material chosen for Club 44’s curtains, but it also raises questions and highlights the inherent gaps in knowledge of preserved documents.

Anna Meschiari settles into these interstices. She works with existing narrative threads as much as with their cuts and the ellipses formed by time, for their potential of projection, fantasy and the opening up of possible conjectures. The artist infiltrates the Club 44’s archives and takes over the premises with her installation Les dialogueur·euse·x·s. It articulates textile, wall and sound pieces, paper and audiovisual archives. Anna Meschiari doesn’t fill in the gaps, she recomposes.

Long, thin textiles, suspended 6 meters high by the artist, adorn the perimeter of the room. Curtains have covered the building’s large windows since its origin in 1912 and have absorbed the words of almost 2,800 conferences, ensuring fluid continuity between inside and outside. The artist reappropriates this “lining”² of the architecture, while the texture and tonalities stand out from those of the direct environment. Her color chart distances itself from the investigated Architectural Polychromy opting instead for eclectic shades, elaborated with acrylics, ranging from earthy to acidic tones, softened by dilution. Anna Meschiari’s 30-metre cheesecloth and the repeated and backlit silkscreen code replay industrial appearances. Yet the hangings seem to convey a new intimacy, redefining the substance of this interior.

“010000X010010000000…” By listening carefully, one might distinguish the code before it blends in with the voices of the sound piece being broadcast, before it becomes a quasi-personified entity gradually infusing its surroundings. “The thing comes closer, it doesn’t feel like it, it looks like an image, it evolves, it doesn’t stay stable, it doesn’t work either, it’s more like it glides in a way”. The voices are those of the dialogueur.euse.x.s. They are also Anna Meschiari’s voices, mingling with those of women lecturers who have marked the Club 44’s history, such as biologist Kitty Ponse in 1953 or astrologer Elizabeth Teissier in 1980, that she captured during her research and incorporated into her sound piece 010000X010010000000.

The repetition and variation of patterns, in an architectural ensemble in which design, graphic and textiles arts respond to each other, are part of the way Club 44 was redesigned back in 1957. Its corporate identity and coherent logo versions derived largely from the communication techniques then prevalent in the watchmaking industry of La Chaux-de-Fonds. Anna Meschiari completes her proposal by adding a large wallpaper with metallic reflections, delivering a renewed, timeless, non-definitive yet familiar version of a multiplied and wide-ranging motif. This systematic approach resonates with that of the conference programs from the 1950s-1970s, methodically preserved by the institution.

Through her installation, the artist offers not only a re-reading of the architectural space and its components, but also a reinterpretation of the gestures and operating modes that predetermined it. Anna Meschiari weaves her fabric from composite elements that combine archival material from the institution or the region, as well as bits of text, textiles, sound and images that already exist or could have existed. Their interweaving allows her to slip into fiction, into a futuristic vision of the place and its archives in the making. She invites us to reconsider not only our conception of spaces and their history, but also that of time. More than a narrative,
the artist delivers a composition. The exhibition Les dialogueur·euse·x·s adheres to the walls of Club 44, forming an integral part of the site’s identity. It takes its place to become the support for new dialogues to come. It is the artwork of which we would find traces today.