The Biennale of Moving Images (BIM) at the Centre of Contemporary Art is a great way to spend the day. This exhibition of time-based art features 22 new commissions and spans five floors within the Bâtiment d’Art Contemporain. Produced by the Centre’s director, Andrea Bellini, in collaboration with Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator and co-director of the Serpentine Gallery in London, and Yann Chateigné, head of the visual arts department at HEAD Geneva, BIM is a technical and conceptual extravaganza.
The in-house Cinema Dynamo offers continuous daily screenings and the highlight is Benjamin Grotty’s Fort Buchanan. The film is beautifully shot, the acting is flawless, and the narrative is unexpected and delightful. Inspired by the artist’s own experiences as an expat, the colourful scenes weave “an American narrative situation into a French aesthetic context” to breed a winning combination.
Another must-see is La Isla está Encantada con Ustedes (The Island is Enchanted with You) by collaborators Alexandra Carver and Daniel Schmidt. The striking multi-channel video installation transposes historical narratives of colonialism with the modern-day Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in the form of easy to take erotic comedy.
BIM runs in Geneva until 23 November before travelling to institutional partners in Tasmania, Shanghai and Paris. The Centre is open Tuesday – Sunday from 11:00 – 18:00. Full-price tickets are CHF 5. For more information: www.centre.ch/en.
Stephanie Twiggs is an American art reviewer living in Geneva