Le livre des séparations

This weekend has been rich in events and discoveries.Two very different exhibitions allowed me behind the curtains of two very different worlds.

Friday evening I am heading to Lausanne to see a vernissage of André Kasper - a painter from Geneva – in the Galerie de L’Univers. It's crowded, the public is very sophisticated and well to-do.  Kasper's recent paintings, full of soft warm light, produce a familiar smell of oil paint, which made me nostalgic and a little bit sad.

André Kasper

On the ground floor of the Gallerie de l’Univers is a bookshop with art-, antique- and secondhand books. My eye falls onto a small blue brochure, I pick it up: “Le livre des séparations” by Anne Bregani.

…

Elle dit:

je ne vois personne

je ne peux pas

regarder les gens

qui sonne à ma porte trouve les lieux désertés

je suis cachée dans la rue  

je veux tout quitter

Je dis :

il y a bien des manieres

de tout quitter

par exemple

partir en Australie

Est-ce qu’elle rit ?

Elle dit :

j’ai arraché mon cœur

de ma poitrine

mon intérieur est sans soleil

mon cœur qui n’existe pas

je l’ai pris

je l’ai broyé

je n’ai jamais eu de cœur…

The rattle of passing trams, the noise from a kebab stand, people trotting by – all fade away for a moment... I pay four francs and I rush out, into another day, into another world...

Australia sounds like a reasonable destination. 

But it's a rainy Saturday in Zurich instead. As usual, dressed a little too light for the occasion I admire a little boy, courageously exploring local puddles. 

Another vernissage. This time by Maria Pomiansky, a Russian-Israeli  painter whom I've met accidentally a few months ago.  

"Afterparty" is the name of the event. Her atelier in Flüelastrasse 47 is a space shared by nine artists and I believe it’s the address to remember.  It’s been a while I had such a good time. Maria’s paintings – romantic yet edgy – brought me back in time, the time I should not have remembered because I was too young… the end of Soviet era, maybe? When all forbidden fruits have been discovered one by one, and sometimes all together, in one coup.

Artist Maria Pomiansky and Art critic Alexandr Schumow

And surely the after-party in the kitchen is the best part, with chaotic conversations in Swiss German, broken English and drunken Russian; with bravado arm wrestling and philosophical mood in the cigarette smoke…it feels like a breath of fresh air at last. 

I am reluctant to leave, but I have to: other worlds are waiting. I can’t wait to leave. I can’t wait to come back. I can’t wait.

AB