Visitors to Faded and The Space Between, an exhibition of work by Su-Mei Tse at the Tschudi gallery, a former fourteenth-century barn in the Swiss Alps, were invited to undertake a “pilgrimage of the senses” as they traveled through a subtle and yet surprising world. By evoking the tiny detail that changes everything, these pieces made in collaboration with Jean-Lou Maje- rus have something of poetic pa- radox about them. They may be about what is lost in translation (D’une langue à l’autre, 2014), in the form of a small heap of black ink dust; or the morning-after remains of a party that continue to vibrate within us even before the sound becomes audible (Silent Party, 2010); or an almost comple- tely nostalgia-free return to our hap- piest childhood memories in Vertigen de la Vida (Dizziness of Life) (2011-13), a piece that pro- vokes daydreams when visitors see the merry-go-round whose seats have been replaced by round, white lamps that like a visual song go on and off to the rhythm of a haun- ting melody written by the artist- musician herself.
With superb refinement she loves to eliminate the superficial and im- merse us in the essential. She in- vites visitors to consider questions that are both philosophical and aes- thetic, by letting themselves be ab- sorbed by a mirror whose brilliance has faded over the years and be- come “blind,” and now shines in- ward (Faded, 2014), or gazing deeply into a candle that burns wi- thout the slightest sputtering (Light, 2014). Her approach embraces both introspection and openness to the world, but always from a particu- lar point of view, interrogating our assumptions and especially our gaze, or perhaps, just simply humor. The title of Gewisse Rahmenbedingungen (A Certain Framework), a series of works begun in 2013, plays with a rather dry German expression to explore art history through sculptures and videos interrogating the concept and form of “the frame“.
Immersion also becomes a kind of time travel. The roots of the tall trees installed in the courtyard are wrapped up like bonsai, literally betwixt and between. The sequence Trees and Roots, which also includes photos, demonstrates Tse’s interest in transitory, transitional moments that are both intense and fragile.
Le Coup scellé (the name of a move in Go) is about ideas that can re- main suspended just before they are realized. Inspired by the emp- tiness of waiting, an all-absorbing white, in this piece Tse pays ho- mage to an historic game of Go played by the Go master and wri- ter Yasunari Kawabata (The Master or the Go Tournament). What in- trigues this artist is the smooth stone, the pawn, that remains fro- zen in space, like a floating ellip- sis, a held breath, a stolen moment for reflection, an instant of silence that is also the present moment.
Translation, L-S Torgoff