Carte Blanche

Every winter through spring, the very traditional Museum of Art and History in Geneva lets loose by inviting a contemporary artist to reinterpret its collections. This unique carte blanche frees them to choose from nearly a million objects, ranging from masterpieces to what might be deemed mere knick-knacks. The museum’s director, Marc-Olivier Wahler, takes this as an opportunity to tap into artists’ greatest asset: their imagination. Naturally, each individual will fish out what interests them. And so far, we have never been disappointed.

Rondinone, Delvoye

Ugo Rondinone

In 2023, Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone staged a dramatic dialogue between selected pieces and his own works (See the report here). In 2024, Wim Delvoye turned the museum’s holdings into a literal ping-pong match, by installing real paintings from the collection alongside bullet-riddled copies in a loud, infernal game (See the report here).

Wim Delvoye

Carol Bove

The 2025 edition of this unconventional visitation, occupying the entire ground floor of the museum’s colossal building, is directed by an American artist best known for her three-dimensional conceptual works. Carol Bove (born in 1971) is a major figure in contemporary American art who has exhibited at MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, etc. Among her attributes in this context is that the artist, though Californian, was born in Geneva, giving her a personal interest in revisiting its local history.

One meter=70 years

The exhibition is astonishing in that, as one gradually realizes in progressing through it, the artwork constitutes the concept of the exhibition itself. The principle established by the artist is relatively simple: Within the 1,200 square meters of this vast space, a continuous black metal beam runs along the entire length of the room, symbolizing the passage of time. The rule is: One meter of beam equals 70 years of history within the museum’s collections. Where Bove found no relevant objects, she simply left the space empty. And until it reaches the Middle Ages, Geneva’s holdings are rather sparse…

The taboo of absence

Playing with this kind of absence in a museum is taboo. “It’s quite provocative to monopolize space for nothing,” Bove noted mischievously, making a passing reference to the price of real estate in Geneva. For visitors confronted with large empty pedestals, there is little choice but to admire the grandiose architecture of the temple-like building from 1910.

Time is the subject

Indeed, time itself becomes both the subject and the protagonist of the exhibition. The journey naturally begins with prehistoric artifacts, such as a Neolithic pendant carved from a bear’s tooth into the shape of an animal. Facing it, Bove has placed an identical replica cast in black resin. “I’m very interested in the visitor’s experience, especially that of children. Thanks to these facsimiles, we can finally touch them,” she explained.

Prison door

Throughout the exhibition, ghostly versions of works, placed on their sides, reproduce the exact forms of the originals. Bove’s choice of objects is sometimes guided by aesthetics, but more often by some unusual characteristic she finds in them—like an impressive Celtic wooden statue dating from 80 BCE, a military gourd sculpted from a dried squash, or a prison door covered in graffiti.

A dog left a print

Bove was also moved by an object that might at first seem trivial: “During the Roman period, ceramic tiles were produced in Geneva. On one of them, a dog left its paw prints—first in one direction, then in the other. I imagined someone scolding the dog, who then turned away. As if it had just happened. Here, time is abolished,” the artist concluded.

Elisabeth Louis Vigée -Lebrun ,

Through June 22. www.mahmah.ch

Carol Bove