ART REVIEW : ‘Swiss Vision’ an Intriguing Group Show

When one thinks of Switzerland, certain things spring to mind. Conceptual art isn’t one of them.

Yet, much Conceptual art does emphasize consumption and money--specifically, the mechanics of art consumption and the economics of art production and distribution. So, it tallies surprisingly well with the trademark symbols of this small, European country: chocolate and bank accounts.

“Swiss Vision: Four Conceptualists,” at Ruth Bachofner Gallery, doesn’t go quite so far to make its case, but it’s a decidedly odd exhibition. The title suggests two things. One is the romantic notion of “vision,” which runs counter to the deconstructive take of most conceptually based art. The other is the idea that “vision” is geographically sited.

In fact, though Swiss-born, all the artists featured reside principally outside Switzerland. Olivier Mosset lives in New York City, Ian Anull in Paris, Remi Dall’Aglio in the South of France and the peripatetic John Armleder in New York, London, Kassel and, on occasion, Geneva.

These artists do share an interest in investigating the entangled apparatus we blithely refer to as “art.” Under what conditions is art made? With what expectations is it received? With what motives is it displayed? Under what guise does it become “history”?

Their approaches, however, are as varied as those of better-known Conceptual and Post-conceptualists in America and France.

Mosset’s work is the most familiar, because his paintings are shown frequently in the States and because familiarity is his subject. The large, pink and orange striped canvas he shows here is self-consciously generic, its surface as smooth and passionless as if it were produced by machine.

Less an abstraction than a sign for an abstraction, less a painting than a semiotic trigger, it’s a signal to lapse into the state of awed receptivity art demands. At the same time, it’s an emblem of our loss of faith in art’s powers.

Dall’Aglio, the youngest of the group, is also concerned with depleted meanings and obscured messages. His paintings are framed to resemble three-dimensional objects, such as a flag hanging on the wall or a stretcher lying on the floor.

These objects are dysfunctional, however, pierced through with holes. Worse yet, those holes, arranged in elaborate patterns, cannot be deciphered.

If Mosset’s art suffers from a certain theoretical bloat and Dall’Aglio’s from a certain melancholy, Anull’s work is serious--while taking itself less seriously. Art, Anull declares, is really quite ordinary. It’s something we consume, like any other product, using up the parts we like and discarding what remains.

For Armleder, art offers a way to advertise ourselves--our taste, sophistication, wit, hipness and such--as in a large, framed, yellow canvas with two brand-new electric guitars.

Elsewhere, a large grid of mirrors gets at this notion more slyly. If art is supposed to reflect a more flattering image of ourselves, what happens when that image is fractured, distorted and, from certain angles, imperceptible?

From certain angles, this show likewise seems fractured--or, at least, out of focus. Individual works are compelling, but a “Swiss Vision” never emerges. Mosset has more in common with French artist Daniel Buren than with Anull; Armleder has more in common with American Louise Lawler than with Dall’Aglio.

What the show does demonstrate is the continued, seemingly unassailable vitality of Conceptual art, and the as-yet-unsatisfied desire to understand the system through which artists--and viewers--are threaded.

Ruth Bachofner Gallery, 926 Colorado Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 458-8007, through March 6. Closed Sun. and Mon.