Swiss Artist Boris Rebetez has a broad practise, working with drawing, installation, photography and sculpture to form new spaces – both physical and imagined. His first London solo exhibition Columnist is currently showing at VITRINE.
When and how did you begin work as an artist?
In the early 90’s as I first arrived at art school, I had very few ideas about what the term contemporary art would mean. During my first year, through some teachers, friends and books from the library, I become more and more aware of this “hidden world”. The reason why I decided to become an artist was probably because I didn’t understand the meaning of art and was at the time attracted by this kind of language.
What is your main drive in creating art?
I work with the physical and mental experience of space and more basically with the understanding of the environment, with the idea of place generally. I follow an idea until I collect enough content to create a new environment, that I try to make visible in an exhibition.
Which piece of your own work are you fondest of?
I am quite proud of the work Columnist that is showing now at VITRINE. It took me over six years to finish the slide of 80 photographs of a neo-classical palace and to decide how I would show them as an entirely new work.
What can we expect to see in Columnist?
Columnist is about time and space and the need of orientation we associate with these two terms of measurement. It is a work about getting lost in a labyrinth of signs and references.
Where in the world are you the happiest?
I am actually on the west cost of Ireland currently, it is raining all day long (or ‘it’s raining cats and dogs’) but I am quite happy yet.
Columnist is showing at VITRINE Bermondsey Street until August 8.
Images courtesy of VITRINE. Photographer Jonathan Bassett.
