#75 Paloma Presents, The Swamp Thing

2 - 21 April

Nicolas Ceccaldi / Mathis Gasser / Pamela Rosenkranz

Paloma Presents is an artist run project based in Zürich, Switzerland, founded in 2009 by Mathis Altmann, Georg Blunier, Vittorio Brodmann and Gunnar Meier. Paloma Presents is dedicated to presentation and aesthetics.

A conversation between Mathis Altmann, Vitto Brodmann and Samuel Jeffery

Samuel Jeffery: Why have you decided on the title The Swamp Thing for this show?

Mathis Altmann & Vitto Brodmann: The idea was to put the show in relation to the Swamp Thing comic, not to illustrate the comic but to incorporate aspects of dystopia of society that are covered in the comic. This is also a big topic in science fiction or horror movies in general.

SJ: Is this what you would say brings the works of the three artists together? This sense of a social dystopia?

MA & VB: It’s not necessarily an attitude combining the three positions but maybe more an interest in transforming something that is already there (ready-made or existing image) into something different.

SJ: The work all has a ‘sci-finess’ to it. In conversation you referred specifically to sci-fi films of the 80’s. A genre of film made on the cusp of technological advancements that, in regards to technology, are embodied by a sense of aspiration and ambition. Could you talk a little about this?

MA & VB: The plots of those movies are always accompanied by the fear that technology is able to control the human species independently. This fear is mostly typified by the use of monsterly characters.

SJ: Ugliness? The swamp thing was ugly but he was nice right?

MA & VB: Perhaps behind each monster there is a lovely person.