DIMANCHE

Christian Robert-Tissot (Geneva, 1960)
Commissioned by: Banque Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch
Collection: Fonds d'art contemporain de la Ville et du Canton de Genève (FMAC and FCAC), Neon Parallax project

On mediums as varied as stretched canvas, architectural fragments and fields in the middle of the countryside, Christian Robert-Tissot occupies the available space with his material of choice: language. Painted and arranged, the words he selects are placed into a particular context, using carefully developed colors, typographies and compositions to express a statement, an idea, a thought. At Plainpalais, at the top of a building owned by the commissioning bank, the artist offers the word Dimanche (Sunday), as a contradiction between the usual function of a commercial sign and an injunction to take a break, a reference to the day-off represented by this linguistic sign. Here the word becomes an image, a poetic evocation, an experienced moment, a blank page, a space-time free of any obligation. The Genevan artist gives the word ‘Sunday’ a particular weight in the face of the Plaine de Plainpalais, a place of freedom and leisure in the middle of a banking district at the heart of a city governed by business.
Article commissioned by P3Art
Notice: Séverine Fromaigeat, translation: Matthew Cunningham