IN A RESTAURANT DRIPPING WITH OLD WORLD CHARM, AN ARTIST UNLEASHES A LEGION OF LUMINOUS, ENCHANTING CREATURES
by Edward M. Gómez
GENEVA, Switzerland — Earlier this year, during a trip to Switzerland, I stopped by the Remor, a favorite café/restaurant in this elegant lakeside city in the southwestern corner of the country, on the border with France, to meet the French-Swiss artist Gene Mann. Mann is known for abstract paintings and drawings with richly textured surfaces whose impulsive-feeling compositions are filled with lumbering human figures and symbol-like elements resembling marks from ancient writing systems.
Passing through a heavy, dark-red, keep-out-the-cold curtain protecting the restaurant’s front door, we found seats at a corner table, where we sat down and ordered glasses of fine Swiss wine. While waiting for a waiter to serve our drinks and fondly taking in and commenting on the Remor’s enduring, Old World charm, we could not avoid noticing a gathering of large, strange, luminous forms cascading down upon us from the ceiling.
A laminated sheet of paper tucked under a menu on our table explained the strange sight above and around us, which turned out to be an exhibition of sculptural works, titled “Fascinantes méduses” (“Fascinating Jellyfish”), by the locally based artist Emmanuel Herz (Instagram: @emmanuelherzart). (In French, a jellyfish is known as a medusa; this word can also be used to refer to these animals in English.)
What unusually beautiful creatures they were, glowing in the soft light of the restaurant’s dining room! Hanging on the walls, above upholstered banquettes, a selection of Herz’s related paintings, also depicting jellyfish, was on display.
The effect of the artist’s room-filling installation was that of an unexpectedly elegant, enchanting kind of fun house. “What did Herz use to create these sculptures?” Mann asked as she looked up at the ceiling at the flying, floating legion of diaphanous sea monsters.
Standing up to get a closer look at one of the sculptures suspended almost directly above her head, she answered her own question, noting, “They’re made with plastic bubble wrap with large bubbles! Also with reused PET bottles and string, and each one has an internal support frame made of wire. Ingenious!”
In a description of his artworks, written in French, which we found on our table, Herz began by quoting the definition of the word “archetype” as it appears in the Dictionnaire Le Robert, a well-known dictionary of the French language. It states, “Archetype: primitive or ideal type; original that serves as a model. In psychology: a primitive, universal symbol belonging to the collective unconscious.”
From Herz’s statement about his jellyfish-themes creations: “Poisonous, stinging, even lethal, jellyfish scare us, paralyze us, disgust us; feed our phobias; and make the fear of unfathomably deep, dark abysses surge in our psyches. But taken by their fragile beauty, slender and undulating, these creatures fascinate us, too; they inspire us and, ultimately, they inevitably attract us.”
[…]
“In my work, I try to represent these archetypal subjects that are able to make impressions and memories resurface within us, to make the imaginary ramble, and give resources to our creative spirit.”
[…]
“My influences are varied: Kandinsky and the Bauhaus, Vasarely and Op Art, Escher and his impossible architecture, Malevich and his ‘arkhitektons,’ Brueghel and his Tower of Babel, Hugo and his châteaux, Hiroshige and Hokusai, Calame and Romanticism…”
About his spooky-stately jellyfish, Herz also observed, “I hope that, after having contemplated them, they’ll leave a durable trace in your spirit, charged with reflexive emotions and thoughts. As the poet says, ‘I hear the song of the bird, not for its voice, but for the silence that follows it.”
[Scroll down to see more photos of Emmanuel Herz’s works.]
