Vicente Lesser
Chile | Visual Arts
Visual Arts
Chilian-born Vicente Lesser proposes to go back to his home country in the project «Las Huellas Desafiantes» (Challenging Footprints), an architectural investigation, anchored in the current context of Santiago de Chile. The residency departs from two architectural objects taken as symbols of the reuse by the ultra-liberal regime of Pinochet of the social initiatives of the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende, and aims to start a generational conversation about the effects of 50 years of by-the-book ultra liberalism and the resulting collective traumas. For Vicente, the project is a way to talk about the reality of Chile in Europe and in Switzerland as well as to tell the story of his own fragmented identity.
Vicente Lesser Gutiérrez [CL/CH] lives and works in Geneva. His artistic work and research focus on urban heritage. Understanding urban planning and architecture both as a technology of domination – or domestication – of bodies, and as a source of formal inspiration, his practice develops through the mediums of sculpture, installation, video, and publishing. His work has been presented in various independent spaces in Switzerland (Milieu – Bern, Tunnel Tunnel – Lausanne, Palazzina – Basel) as well as in institutional contexts (Salle Crosnier – Geneva, Villa Bernasconi – Geneva, CALM – Lausanne) amongst others. He participated in the 2017 & 2021 editions of the City of Geneva Grants and was selected as a finalist for the Swiss Art Awards 2022. He graduated from ÉDHEA- Sierre (BA, Bachelor) and from HEAD–Geneva (MA, Work.Master).
