Bally Artist Award 2024
26.05 – 11.08.2024

Astrida Neimanis, “Hydrofeminism: Or, On Becoming a Body of Water”

Monika Emmanuelle Kazi was born in Paris and grew up in France and the Republic of Congo, before moving to Geneva, where she currently lives. Her diasporic identity is the key to understanding her practice, which focuses on exploring the imprints and memories left by the body in domestic environments, understood as spaces that are both private and political. In her works, which combine writing, performance, video and installation, ordinary objects and familiar places become fields of investigation in which to search for traces that can reveal roots of belonging, intimate beliefs or worldviews – ultimately, stories that change and repeat themselves.

​​​​​​​Almost as if retrieving the historical memory of Palazzo Reali, the installations created by Kazi for the 2024 edition of the Bally Artist Award evoke a domestic space inside the Sala Mattoni, whose illumination depends largely on the natural light that penetrates through the windows and the lamp on the floor, left on. The essential furniture that occupies the room serves to preserve and, at the same time, display a series of crystal glass found objects: common household items that the artist has salvaged and subsequently lacquered using silver nitrate. Closely associated with photography and the early experiments that marked its beginnings, silver nitrate is a photosensitive compound that decomposes when exposed to light, changing colour and density. Instead of water, glasses, goblets and vases are thus filled with images of bodies and snapshots of real life that, as is often the case in the artist’s work, intertwine her personal story with broader social and political issues. In the scenes, which emerge from the glass thanks to the chemical process, Kazi’s personal archive mingles with wider-reaching mythical and collective events, particularly the traditional iconography of the goddess Fortune and the motifs reproduced on the old CFA francs. Originally standing for “French Colonies in Africa” and later for “Financial Community of Africa”, the acronym CFA refers to the currency used in the Republic of Congo. The old banknotes become relics of the artist’s childhood while also revealing themselves as instruments of colonial domination used to impose a certain lifestyle, a way of inhabiting the world that reflects a system of codes and beliefs to be performed and imitated. However, by its very nature, each form of imitation results in a slight deviation that renders it imperfect, highlighting the hollowness of a reality that is merely apparent.

While it does not inhabit the glass vessels that normally contain it and allow it to infiltrate the domestic sphere, water is a constant presence in the exhibition space, in both the site-specific interventions on the floor and the sound track The Seed (2017), where its flowing alternates and overlaps with the artist's voice in narrating the chronicle of the life of a plant through the little daily gestures dedicated to it. The sound loop traces the cyclical nature and inexorable passage of time, while also providing an antidote to it: the care and attention paid to preserving the objects that surround us and that determine the concept of home as a space of production and perpetuation of identity more than its four walls. Kazi’s production is characterized by the same approach of meticulous, precise preservation. Mimesis of Domesticity draws to our attention to the issue of sustainability not merely in the intimacy of our domestic space, but rather within our social, cultural and political milieu: sustainability also understood in the broadest sense as the power to preserve an authentic identity, capable of resisting the whims and upheavals of the wheel of Fortune.

Monika Emmanuelle Kazi

Two of Cups, 2024
Wood engraving, glass, silver nitrate, lacquer glass
175 x 42 cm

Le goût du sublime, 2024
Glasses, silver nitrate, lacquer glass, silver trays
Variable dimensions

Boire un verre, 2024 
Glasses, silver nitrate, lacquer glass, silver tray
Variable dimensions

Le souper interrompu, 2024 
Glasses, silver nitrate, lacquer glass
Variable dimensions 

A still life, 2024
Glass lamp, silver nitrate, lacquer glass, light bulb
10 x 10 cm 

Untitled, 2024
Salt crystallized watercolour 
Variable dimensions

The Seed, 2017 
Sound, 3’6’’, loop every 27’
Courtesy of the artist

For all the works, if not specified otherwise: courtesy of the artist and GALERIE PHILIPPZOLLINGER

Biography

Monika Emmanuelle Kazi was born 1991, and grew up between Pointe-Noire (Republic of Congo) as well as Paris. Today, she lives and works in Geneva. After studying interior design, she studied fine arts at HEAD-Genève and graduated with honors in 2021. Recent solo and duo exhibitions include at PHILIPPZOLLINGER (Zurich, 2024); Tunnel Tunnel (Lausanne, 2023); Kunsthalle Friart (Fribourg, 2022); Villa du Parc (Annemasse, 2022); PHILIPPZOLLINGER (Zurich, 2022); WallStreet (Fribourg, 2021); sic! Elephanthouse (Lucerne, 2021) and at HIT (Geneva, 2019). She has participated in numerous group shows, such as at FRAC Champagne-Ardenne (Reims, 2024); AlteFabrik (Rapperswil, 2024); Publiek Park (Antwerp, 2023); Forde (Genève, 2022); Centre d’Art Contemporain (Geneva, 2021); Futura (Prague, 2021); Limbo Space (Geneva, 2020) and at Le Kabinet (Brussels, 2018). In 2021, Kazi was the recipient of the Kiefer Hablitzel Göhner Prize and the HEAD-Galerie award. In 2022, she completed a residency at La Cité des Arts in Paris. 

BALLY ARTIST AWARD

Established in 2008, the Bally Artist Award honors Swiss artists or those residing in Switzerland who demonstrate dedication to exploring the intersection between savoir-faire and nature. Since 2021, the Bally Foundation has furthered its partnership with the Museo della Svizzera italiana. In addition to hosting a two-month solo exhibition at MASI Palazzo Reali, the winning artist’s works are acquired to become part of the MASI collections. For the 2024 edition of the award, the Bally Foundation and MASI have invited five figures from the international art scene to curate the selection of participating artists: Céline Kopp (Director of Le Magasin - CNAC, Grenoble), Noah Stolz (Independent curator), Marc-Olivier Wahler (Director of the Musée d’art et d’histoire de Genève), Pedro Wirz (2023 Bally Artist Award Winner), Maja Wismer (Head of Contemporary Art at Kunstmuseum Basel). The nominated artists presented a portfolio which was examined by a jury composed of Nicolas Girotto and Vittoria Matarrese, President and Director of Bally Foundation, Tobia Bezzola, Director of MASI, Julian Fronsacq, Chief Curator at MAMCO Genève, and Valentine Umansky, Curator at Tate Modern, London. The jury unanimously awarded the prize, while also noting the high quality and diversity of the submissions.