Vivian Suter
Hora del lobo wolves hour
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Vivian Sutter entitled the works on the following pages “Alrededor de mi cuarto,” around my room. Not only because they were all created in the surroundings of her room, but because they form part of these surroundings.
When these works were born, the surroundings of Vivian Sutter’s room were that remained of an old coffee plantation on the edge of Lago Atitlán. The gravileas, avocado and mango trees, once planted to protect the coffee plants, throw their green shadow over this area all the year around. A steep path, half staircase, half mountain path, leads out of the shadow to Vivian Sutter’s atelier just above the tree-tops with a view over the village Panajachel, the lake and it’s three volcanoes - the further surroundings of Vivian Suter’s room.
Up there (“Allí arriba”) she created many of these photographic works and pictures. They relate to the wind (“Xocomil es un viento”), the rain (“Bajo aqua”), hidden volcanoes (“Volcanes Escondido’s y ¿dónde estás tú?”), they talk about the hours of the wolves (“Horas de lobo”) the swallows that come and go (“Golondrinas se van y vienen”) and the thrush that sings there (“Allí Canta el zorzal”).
Below, in the shadows of the Cafetal, is a second studio. The view through The open gate goes no further than the leaves of the banana plants that grow close to the wall of the house. The works which have their origin here are close-up views: The wild liana (“Bejuco salvage y paja”), the reappearing motive of the forbidden fruit, the self-contemplation (“Where is the apple, where is the shoe?”) or the introspective (“Lejos están mis amigos”, far are my friends and “En particulas de explosión”, one of the works which originated after the statues of Bamian had been blown up).
Vivian Suter’s pictures, the photographic work created at the same time as well as her works on paper are images, comments and interpretations of her outer and inner surroundings. But they are also conversions. They adopt what surrounds them, and they are adopted by what they are surrounded with.
In Vivian Suter’s restless life there is one constancy: her art. Wherever she abides, can be found a studio near her room when new works are created and which is surrounded by existing works.
At present the surroundings of Vivian Suter’s room is the city of Basle. But here, too, her pictures will remain what they always are: Equipaje en conexión, luggage in transit.
- Martin Suter