With the generous support of the DAAD and the Freundeskreis der Städelschule, Galerie 1m3 is pleased to announce Influence, a group exhibition and a publication by 19 artists living outside of Switzerland. We were like a network of passenger pigeons, passing correspondence amongst ourselves, but never with a sense of group consensus, never knowing what the others were doing exactly.

Standing for the first time in a bar in Lausanne, as everyone else was standing on the street in front of it, it suddenly occurred to me that the difference from the bars I am more used to frequenting is, in fact, that they prompt you to sit down. Talking in that sense presupposes a group conversation, and group dynamics are contained by, and represented in, the table. In the standing up bar I was encouraged to move around, and I talked to five different people exclusively in less than an hour. As it looked, others were doing the same.

The road from acquaintance to collegiality or even to friendship can be long or not very long at all; but it usually starts with a question like “Where have you come from?” As in, “What brings you here?” In any case, I have learned that both are not real questions, but in fact are invitations to conversation. However, by dropping the general place specific they can be reformulated back into a question like “Where are you coming from?” or “What do you think you are doing?”

Ideas can come from places or people, but they can also just be in the air. I think things usually move around until one thing gets stuck on something and someone decides it makes sense. When you get two people in one room they might or might not get into a conversation, but from the perspective of someone peeping in through the window (or so the saying goes) these people are going to relate in more ways than not. It’s easy to forget that people can turn into objects as quickly as an object can make you a proposition.

When I’m getting into an elevator with other people, I sometimes wonder if in case of a jam, will I get along with these people? Or in terms of survival: who will eat who? Then, if indeed I still want to stay alive, what might the guy next to me taste like?.

The matter of what’s following what or who’s following who can come in here… Withholding or fictifying information at an early stage of a relationship, like a biographical insert, figures as a kind of divergent or space filler that might just buy enough time on the course up to the would-be yacht, penthouse, hotel-suit come tent-thing. But of course when it’s obvious, it’s as obvious as the motives the lie was attempting to cover.

Once lonely in Paris in the 90’s, I thought to take my chances on the last screening at the Cinematek. Thinking best case scenario I just might get along with someone, I got a ticket somewhere in the middle to whatever was playing next. The film was Tango in Paris and the seats were cubed into individual viewing booths.

Text by Stephane Barbier Bouvet