Art Môtiers unfolds works across village, fields, and forest

The Swiss village of Môtiers is once again hosting its renowned art exhibition, Art Môtiers, featuring works by 33 artists and collectives. This year's iteration, which began with artists visiting the site to draw inspiration, sees pieces integrated into the village, surrounding fields, and forests, continuing a tradition that started in 1985.

The exhibition aims to create art that engages with the specificities of the region without becoming trivial. Many pieces incorporate humor, even when tackling weighty subjects. The journey begins at the train station with Zimoun's installation, which transforms 35 ordinary green trash bins into a rhythmic symphony, offering a poetic perspective on mundane objects.

Inside the Protestant temple, Noémie Doge's "The Good Mother" confronts misogynistic quotes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who was exiled to Môtiers in 1762. Rousseau's words are inscribed on large veils, superimposed with a drawing of a large, downcast female eye, directly referencing his writings on women and his dedication of "Emile" to Louise Dupin, a feminist pioneer.

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Women, in general, love no art, understand none, and have no genius.

Further along the path, other works address violence against women. Mahtola Wittmer's piece displays the letters of the word "amour" (love) as distant targets, with the panels visibly riddled with bullet holes from the village's shooting range. At the end of the route, Léa Katharina Meier uses multiple media, a commemorative plaque, a soundscape, and a painting on the glass of the Maison de l'Absinthe, to recount the stories of the "Wicked and Ugly Green Fairy" and the "Village of the Fools."

Meier's work touches upon the historical ban of absinthe in Switzerland, which lasted a century. The ban followed a 1905 incident in Commugny where a man, after drinking absinthe, murdered his wife and two daughters before committing suicide. The focus of the ensuing trial was on the "green fairy" rather than the man's alcoholism. Adrian Fernandez Garcia's "Les Arrêts" features bronze and copper indexes, resembling fingers pressed to lips for silence, evoking the stills used during the absinthe prohibition, but these mini-sculptures hold open shutters.

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who dedicates his Emile – the work, with The Social Contract, which earned him exile in Môtiers in 1762 – to 'a good mother who knows how to think,' in this case Louise Dupin, considered a pioneer of feminism.