It all started in the Swiss Alps on June 24, 1983 with the performance of James Lee Byars: “a drop of black perfume”. From the following summer until 1996, Marc Hostettler publisher and gallerist in Neuchâtel, and initiator of FurkArt would invite no less than sixty artists to an old hotel: the hotel Furkablick, built in 1893 at the Furka Pass, not far from the Glacier of the Rhône. During the opening of the Pass, in the beautiful season from June to September, this location transformed into a place of production of perennial and ephemeral works, a real artistic laboratory.

In addition to Panamarenko, who took up residence in an annex where he created his first flying backpacks and archaeopteryxes, there were also works, interventions and performances by Rem Koolhaas, Jenny Holzer, Richard Long, Stanley Brouwn, Filip Francis, Mario Merz, Günther Förg, Claude Rutault, Ian Hamilton-Finlay, Gretchen Faust and many others who would go on to gain international renown.

The exhibition FurkArt ephemera presents original documents (invitations, posters, postcards, letters) related to the artistic interventions that took place. These documents, mostly published by Hostettler, were compiled by Thomas Rodriquez. The ensemble, exhibited chronologically and accompanied by filmed or written testimonies of artists and protagonists – among them Ulay, Guillaume Bijl, Per Kirkeby, François Morellet, Hamish Fulton, John Armleder, Mark Luyten, Lawrence Weiner, Isi Fiszman, René Zäch, Ria Pacquée, Glen Baxter, Jacques Hainard, Luc Deleu, Roman Signer – allows us to discover the achievements of these actors and makes palpable the human dimension of this adventure that profoundly marked a generation of the art world.

Curated by: Thomas Rodriguez

With the support of Wouter Huis, Greylight Projects