Mathias Pfund

 (*1992, CH)
Cæsarina, 2022
Steel, silver, bronze, powder coating, concrete pedestal
156 × 90 × 50 cm

Mathias Pfund’s artistic practice involves composing fictions and it resorts to various strategies of appropriation. Through reproduction, he is chiefly interested in the representation of art and in the various values and ideologies underpinning it. Cæsarina is a throne dedicated to “César”, his grand-mother of Italian origin, who has been a neighbour of Villa la Grange for over 50 years. This is a curule chair hybridised with a laurel wreath, carrying with it different symbolic implications: that of (patriarchal) power in ancient Rome, that of the victorious Imperator in later Rome, or that of poets in Greece. In addition, the seat is decorated by three medals, each exploring in indexical mode narratives linked to a specious European antiquity. This work, a parody of an authoritarian language, nevertheless remains an element of street furniture, on which anyone is free to sit. For more information, an extended caption is available at 57 route de Frontenex.

Produced with the help of Robin Gabriel (Serruriers Noirs), David Chojnacki (SwissArt Edition Genève), Hugo Milan, Marc Calame (form|c)
With the support of FCAC Genève