The Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia presents “The Concert,” on view at the Switzerland Pavilion
during the 59th Venice Biennale. The exhibition, curated by Alexandre Babel and Francesco Stocchi,
presents scenes of impermanence, reuse, and catharsis which brings life as a cycle to the fore. Latifa
Echakhch evokes the ritual fires common to folk sculpture and customs, from the lighting of straw dolls
for the St. John's fire to protect against demons and diseases in the summer solstice, to the burning of the Böögg on Zurich's Sechseläutenplatz to bid farewell to the winter season. Echakhch evokes a cyclical dialogue with the building itself (designed by Bruno Giacometti in 1951), exploring the relationship of her work to the lights and sounds that emerge from its placement, and recycling most of the material used for the exhibition from previous biennales.