SPACE BOOMERANG With: MICHEL BLAZY, MIKE BOUCHET, LORIS GRÉAUD, MARK HANDFORTH, ANN VERONICA JANSSENS, LANG/BAUMANN, JONATHAN MONK, GIANNI MOTTI, BRUNO PEINADO CURATED BY MARC-OLIVIER WAHLER // JANUARY 24 – MARCH 9

The Boomerang Nebula is the coldest known place in the Universe, even colder than the -270°C background glow from the Big Bang. Boomerang is located about 5,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the Southern constellation Centaurus. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows a young planetary nebula with faint arcs and ghostly filaments embedded within the diffuse gas of the nebula's smooth 'bow tie' lobes. The diffuse bow-tie shape of this nebula makes it quite different from other observed planetary nebulae, which normally have lobes that look more like 'bubbles' blown in the gas. However, the Boomerang Nebula is so young that it may not have had time to develop these structures. Why planetary nebulae have so many different shapes is still a mystery.

The Swiss Institute – Contemporary Art is pleased to present SPACE BOOMERANG, a group exhibition featuring the mushroom cloud splattered with 200 lbs of noodles by MICHEL BLAZY / the Jacuzzis for Tyra Banks-Muammar Kadhafi, Tony Blair and Derek Jeter by MIKE BOUCHET / the resonance of the Big Bang and the odor of Mars by LORIS GRÉAUD / the candle lit Honda by MARK HANDFORTH / the smoky star by ANN VERONICA JANSSENS / the wall of dark light by LANG/BAUMANN / the immobile but still moving bicycle by JONATHAN MONK / the 27 km walk in the particle accelerator by GIANNI MOTTI / the bumped McCracken Monolith by BRUNO PEINADO.

SPACE BOOMERANG is the latest episode in the suite of exhibitions curated by Wahler for the SI. SPACE BOOMERANG contributes to the dialogue that started with EXTRA in 2003, and continued with FIVE BILLION YEARS in 2004 and OK/OKAY in 2005. With the SI’s exhibitions over the past five years Wahler has developed a program of shows that relate to one another so that that ideas and visual elements collide with each other over time and space. In SPACE BOOMERANG, through Wahler’s ability to transform the gallery, we find the work of ten contemporary artists, whose projects seem to leave a faint resonance of past exhibitions, while propagating ideas and forms to be revisited. The cycle of exhibitions can be seen as a trajectory whose movement is never linear but always returns to its point of departure after multiple possible trajectories. SPACE BOOMERANG inhabits the SI in a state of perpetual rotation and with a ceaseless renewal of interpretations, activating a chronic, absurd and maybe poetic schizophrenia.

SPACE BOOMERANG will be the last group exhibition curated by Marc-Olivier Wahler as the SI’s Artistic Director, before he moves to Paris, where he has been appointed Director of Palais de Tokyo.

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