• Whatever

• About
  • An Interview with Donatella Bernardi (2010)
  • Download portfolio (March 2020, pdf, 26,2 Mb)
  • Contact

• Exhibitions
  • Morelli Freud Holmes (2018-2019)
  • From Abdizuel to Zymeloz (2018)
  • The Belly of the Phoenix (2017)
  • Same Same But Different (2015)
  • Morgenröte, aurora borealis and Levantin… (2015)
  • Barbabietole e meringue (2014)
  • Helvetic Zebra (2014)
  • Smoking Up Ambition! (2014)
  • The Hacker Grail (2013)
  • JJR Pole Dance (2011)
  • Pour «Play Bach» (2010–2011)
  • L’intermédiaire (2009–2010)
  • God Doesn’t Play Dice, He Smoothes the Edges (2009)
  • Post Tenebras Luxe (2009)
  • Les Barbus (2009)
  • Talking Object HA (2008)
  • L’Ane & le Lion (2008)
  • Wunder Stanza (2007–2008)
  • Retourner sa veste (2005–2008)
  • Sur la paille (2004)

• Publications
  • PhD (2018)
  • Into Your Solar Plexus (2016)
  • In Pursuit of Unlimited Hospitality (2014)
  • I got a manicure (2013)
  • Post Tenebras Luxe (2009)
  • L’Ane & le Lion (2008)

• Lectures
  • Ego Teaching (2012)

• Movies
  • Our Last Sonata (2010–2012)
  • Les héritiers de la Comtesse (2009)
  • Peccato mistico/short (2009)
  • Fortuna Berlin (2005)

• Eternal Tour
  • Eternal Tour São Paulo (2012)
  • Eternal Tour Genève (2012)
  • Deserting Las Vegas (2011)
  • Eternal Tour Jerusalem (2010)
  • Eternal Tour Neuchâtel (2009)
  • Eternal Tour Rome (2008)

JJR
Pole Dance

Donatella Bernardi in association with Noémie Gygax

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s (who lived in Môtiers in 1762–1765) question “is it culture that perverts Man?” is correlated to one of today’s interior sports—the pole dance. As a result, for the 2011 Môtiers—Art en plein air (‘Outdoor Art’) opening, to be held on June 18th—artist Louise Dahl-Lindvall proposes a pole dance choreography based on Rousseau’s ideas, on absinthe and its mascot, the fairy. Next to her a flashing “neon-sculpture” on the façade of the “old farm” Bovet building. The Bovet company’s logo consists of a black cat drinking the anise-flavored liquor straight from the glass—a motif copied from a Mourgues brothers’ poster. For JJR Pole Dance, the cat dances around a pole whose line-structure recalls Marcel Duchamp’s Large Glass (1934). The cones (stills or Duchamp-style chocolate maker?) are like machines that transmute matter to drunkenness—an alchemy that corresponds to JJR Pole Dance, in a flavor imported from Las Vegas.

Background picture: Louise Dahl-Lindvall for JJR Pole Dance. Photo: Alain Germond.

JJR Pole Dance neon sign. Photo: Alain Germond.

Louise Dahl-Lindvall for JJR Pole Dance. Photo: Alain Germond.

Looking at the pole dance performance. Photo: Alain Germond

Louise Dahl-Lindvall for JJR Pole Dance. Photo: Alain Germond.

Absinthe label design by Noémie Gygax.

"Néon chat" for Maison Opéra. Photo: Danaé Panchaud.