7.2.2017 de fr it en

Everything is in motion...

Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, internationally renowned for his movable sculptures, is said to have formulated the principle behind his work as follows: «Everything is in motion. There is no such thing as stand-still.» To this day his virtuoso mix of playful design, humour and profound seriousness captures our imagination. The Istituto Svizzero di Roma is about to hold a major retrospective of Tinguely’s oeuvre at its Milan branch. Milan, after all, constitutes a key location in the career of this master of kinetic art.

Adding to its global web of offices abroad, Pro Helvetia is due to open its latest liaison office in Moscow at the end of February. The ground for this step was laid by the exchange programme between the Swiss Arts Council and Russian art practitioners that has been running for several years.

Pro Helvetia Communication

Explosive retrospective

Jean Tinguely in Milan

If Jean Tinguely were still alive, he would most likely celebrate his 92nd birthday with a big bang. After all, he had planned to mark the tenth anniversary «Nouveau Réalisme», the artist movement he belonged to, with a massive explosion in the middle of the Piazza del Duomo in Milan, where the group had first publicised its manifesto.

On 16 February, the Istituto Svizzero in Milan is opening an exhibition using film and print fragments from Tinguely’s oeuvre to pay homage to one of Switzerland’s most exceptional artists.

Video image from Bernhard Luginbühl’s movie «La Vittoria», 1970.

Russia

OFFICES ABROAD

New liaison office in Moscow

On 25 February Pro Helvetia is opening its latest liaison office in the centre of Moscow.

The step was preceded by «Swiss Made in Russia», a cultural exchange programme between Switzerland and Russia that has been running since 2012. The office will be officially opened by Pro Helvetia President Charles Beer in a ceremony that includes outstanding Swiss performances at Stanislavsky Electrotheatre in the heart of the Russian capital.

Nirvana, Delgado Fuchs © Alex Yocu

READINGS

Russian readings at Literaturhaus

How do Russian authors reflect the Second World War, the Soviet era and the chaotic years following the collapse of the USSR? And how do such reflections influence historic awareness in Russia? These are questions raised at the «Tage russischer Literatur» (Russian literature days) event in Zurich.

Tatar writer Guzel Jachina and Victor Martinovich from Belarus will read from their latest works and cast some light on myths around the former Soviet empire. Further speakers include Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Sergei Lebedev and Michail Shishkin, who lives in Swiss exile.

Program

«Hudigääggeler» – a revival

MUSIC

From the Golden Twenties to the den Roaring Sixties, Zurich was a hotspot for «Ländler», a form of Swiss folk music. Subsequently, the «Hudigääggeler» – a slightly derogatory term for Ländler – was looked down on as music for cigar-puffing country bumpkins.

The Volkshaus theatre in Zurich is now reviving old traditions. Twice a month, it offers a stage to renowned Swiss folk musicians such as Töbi Tobler and Albin Brun. For the past few years have seen an astonishing come-back of the Hudigääggeler scene with an array of fresh and exciting musicians and formations.

Calls for applications

Zimmermann & de Perrot, Cour d'honneur du Palais des Papes, Avignon 2010.

RESIDENCIES...

... around the globe

For 2018, Pro Helvetia is offering three-month studio residencies in the regions of its liaison offices. Swiss art practitioners can apply for a residency in the Arab world, in China, India, Russia, Southern Africa or, thanks to cooperation with the Swiss Institute New York, in America’s Big Apple. A residency in Egypt is on offer for the current year, too. Applications are to be submitted via myprohelvetia.ch by 1 March at the latest.

THEATER

Seminar in Avignon

Each summer, the Medieval city of Avignon is the venue of one of the most important performing arts festivals in the world. As part of the event, young theater and dance practitioners from a wide array of countries are given the opportunity to participate in an intensive seminar programme offering full immersion in the world of contemporary stage art.

The 5th edition of this international project for emerging stage practitioners is again jointly organised by the Avignon festival and Pro Helvetia. Applications from Switzerland are be submitted between 1 February and 15 March 2017 via myprohelvetia.ch

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Clandestine love, popular revolt, gruesome death

A king and his secret love for his favourite, popular discontent and a ghastly death. The story of King Edward II has a lot of classical opera elements. On 19 February, the Deutsche Oper in Berlin is staging t he world premiere of Christof Loy’s music theatre production, which portrays the English king as an outsider and traces his contemporaries’ attitude towards homosexuality.

Thomas Jonigk wrote the libretto, composer Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini from Basel, backed by Pro Helvetia, set it to music.

Literature

REPORTS

The pleasure of reading about it

Pro Helvetia invites authors and translators who have benefited from a residency to share their experiences in the way they do it best – in writing. Four times a year, their accounts in our «Writing in residency» dossier allow readers to share some of the high and low points and everyday episodes of living and working away from home.

«The great thing about writing», the first such text, comes from Grisons-based Leta Semadeni, who spent last spring at Deutsches Haus in New York. Residencies for writers round off the artist residency programme offered by Pro Helvetia’s liaison offices around the world.

TRANSLATIONS

New rates for translation

Pro Helvetia actively encourages literary translation as an essential factor in building a readership for Swiss literature beyond the authors’ native linguistic region at home and abroad. To bolster its support, the Swiss Arts Council has decided to raise the amounts granted to Swiss translators and those resident in Switzerland.

From 2017, Pro Helvetia contributes CHF 60 per norm page (1,800 keystrokes) to a translator’s fee.

Amateurs put pictures
in motion

CAIRO

Geneva-based artist duo Maria Iorio and Raphaël Cuomo care little for perfectly planned and executed imagery, preferring to focus instead on visual worlds created by amateur film-makers. Based on material provided by the «Fédération Tunisienne des Cinéastes Amateurs» (FTCA), the two explore the potential of amateur film-making as a means of creative and political resistance.

With the support of Pro Helvetia, their production has made it to the «PhotoCairo6» festival, which kicks off in the Egyptian capital on 15 February.