To Dig Dug Dug Layers (Not too Deep), 2018 © Léonie Vanay.
Photo credit: © Myriam Ziehli
Faire sécher ses armes I, 2020
© Léonie Vanay
Photo credit: © Myriam Ziehli
Photo credit: © Myriam Ziehli
Les Prendre ta main, serrer nos poings (detail), 2019
© Léonie Vanay
Photo credit: © Myriam Ziehli
Faire sécher ses armes V, 2022
© Léonie Vanay
Photo credit: © Myriam Ziehli
Vignette de présentation :
Faire sécher ses armes I (detail), 2020 © Léonie Vanay, crédit photo © Myriam Ziehli
This text emerged within the framework of the Picker Prize, dedicated to emerging Swiss artists, for which I was the professional in charge of selecting the laureate. I selected Léonie Vanay, who was to see her first monograph published. After several months of work together with graphic designer Grégoire Romanet, a final layout was ready, awaiting the translations of my text.
In the end, the publisher apArté did not provide these translations and instead imposed a rewritten version of my text, stripped of its poetry, rhythm, and style. As artist, graphic designer, and author, we stood together to defend the integrity of our works and refused these alterations. apArté then decided to abandon the publication.
This project nonetheless allowed our encounter and a fruitful collaboration. We value this text and wish to give it visibility, while also shedding light on abusive practices of power. It should be noted that participation in the prize involves no remuneration for the artist’s work.
Voir aussi
We Are Happy Here in A Happy House
Site de l’artiste
Léonie Vanay
Hot topic is the way that we rhyme1
I have always enjoyed work that shifts my perspective, challenges me, prompts reflection, and has me pondering. I met Léonie Vanay on a Friday. After leaving her studio, I gave Françoise2 a look of shared recognition: “— I don’t know what to say yet.” Smiles. The impressions of that first encounter remain vivid in my mind—an unexpected revelation, a tumultuous whirlwind of expansive reflections sparked by our exchange. A recollection of compelling contrast, thought-provoking misunderstandings, and the challenge of an immediate understanding. Evolving. This is going to be both engaging and stimulating.
Léonie Vanay’s work doesn’t reveal itself at first glance. You have to catch it at the right moment, embrace its complexity and its fleeting nature. Accept its mysteries. Layers and dimensions unfold and provoke. It requires a bit of oneself to conjure its essence. The artist herself toys with this reality; it is possible to overlook the work, its intentions, and its subtle yet firmly embedded significances. She obscures messages and images, orchestrates a scenario where all is present, yet known by the relative few, and allows others to do the work, whilst quietly shaking the world like thunder and lightning3.
Léonie Vanay has an ardent, and perhaps even greater interest, in the process—the gesture, the intuitive spontaneity of the work’s creation—the way in which the various components of a piece come together, rather than with the “finished object” itself. Like many artists since the Bauhaus, including Anni Albers, she disregards the conventional boundaries between the applied arts and fine arts, between artistic creation and artisanal knowledge4. This is undoubtedly connected to her time spent as a musician, making her own reeds. She produces, crafts, shapes, sews, casts, engraves, draws, reworks…
In recent years, the artist has accepted that her works evolve or even disappear by her own hand. She embraces the ever-open possibility that a piece could be destroyed, remodeled, altered, augmented, or shredded depending on the situational circumstances and context. Paradoxically, I see this as a way of preserving their perpetual contemporaneity. Their derealisation; killing them in order to resurrect them—like the work of Niki de Saint Phalle—a war without victims5, work that is deeply rooted in its time, and continuing the legacy of influential artists whose profoundly engaged practices have made their mark in Art History, from Adrian Piper to Rachel Whiteread, Louise Bourgeois to Vera Molnar, Dora García to Elaine Sturtevant…
For me, this sense of boundless freedom is central to her practice. The passage of time, the delay, the waiting period of a 'work in progress' are all integral parts of her creative process. Much like many artists have done since the 1960s, those who destroy or transform some of their works, this isn’t about self-destructive performances like those of Tania Mouraud, nor acts of protest like those of Malcolm Morley or Loïc Raguénès6. In Léonie Vanay’s case, her openness to potential—and possibly perpetual—mutation/destruction carries her ideas, her work, her apprehension, and the work’s reception to another level. It is inspiring to observe the freedom with which she grants herself, a libertarian permission, to revisit, preserve, or radically change everything. A stance that goes against the grain of the art world, its market, and institutional conservation, and is also reflected in the curatorial practices that the artist has been pursuing individually, or as part of a collective for several years.
Political and societal issues have undoubtedly fueled these subversive actions. In response to the newly visible realities of cultural reappropriation and the emergence (at last) of new ways of looking at the world of Art, and its history, the artist recognises that some of her works—which were created in a context that originally overlooked these critical ideas, and new insights relating to Post-Colonial Studies—could no longer exist as such. The realization called for decisive action.
However, rather than deciding to completely destroy them, she transforms them. They change, they evolve. In gradual steps, like a game of Marabout, bout de ficelle7… Seven works and a collection of drawings and notes cumulated over a decade, resulting in 2018 in the series To Dig Dug Dug Layers (But Not Too Deep)—around thirty sheets in differing shades of gray and black—the ghosts of transfigured sculptures—revealing fragments scarred by wood and metal, embossings, and cutouts. The mobile piece Aiguiser les larmes was also born from pieces of “lost” works that the artist transitioned from wood to bronze. In 2024, Léonie Vanay will present Aiguiser les larmes (fragment)for the first time, continuing this liberation from normative rules: a work whose existence and formal sense remains, even when presented in part.
In observing this evolutive work, one senses the assertion that everything is in flux, and ever-changing. An acceptance by the artist of the necessity to reassess previous convictions. To move. This strength, this determination in the constancy of inconstancy is rather fascinating, akin to an analogy of the world. Observing the world as it is—a getting back to nature—to its complexity and continuous flux, the ever-changing cycle of humanity, living beings, erratic rocks, and the entire landscape. This is an intuitive approach, shaping the artistic process through the lens of renewal via impermanence.
Faire sécher ses armes (I à XII), Aiguiser ses larmes… whether mobile or static, the shadows and drawings projected on the walls bring to mind Plato’s Cave. Imaginings, pareidolia—yet the invisible remains present, caught between divagation and the loss of the sense of reality, leaving only the poetry of imagined images behind.
Faire sécher ses armes (I à XII) are suspended works created from explorations, fractions of familiar industrial objects found discarded on the ground, and collected along pathways, sidewalks, in parks—pieces of metal, washers, zippers, wires, links, hooks, and tubes… Discarded, lost, reclaimed by the artist, who assembles and weaves them into lines and forms, often combining them with other works8, and elevating their presence. In doing so, she follows the path of Anni Albers and Alexander Reed: From the start, we were fully aware of our attempt to not differentiate between materials, not to assign conventional notions of preciousness or utility to them. By breaking with traditional evaluation, we considered this an attempt to restore the materials. We thought our experiments might help highlight the purely ephemeral value we attach to things, even though we believe them to be permanent.9
Léonie Vanay delves into transformations, changes, and layers of meaning. She disperses keys and ears throughout, crafting intricate webs, and preserving memories. Her works always offer many layers of meaning and interpretation. In her more figurative work the artist plays with reassuring double meanings and well-established symbols. L’oreille aimante, an on-going series of molds and ear castings in wax, metal and leather… The ear acts as a resonating chamber, a vessel for words or affection, an erogenous zone, a guardian of tenderness, of unspoken secrets. I listen to you, you listen to me, we reconnect. A refuge. Just as the keys that she works with, she transforms and trivializes for Consider the Hand Rather than the Lock. These objects lose their original functionality, becoming brooches, loops, weapons for self-defense, games… Employed in a formal, narrative, and symbolic way, they represent what remains concealed, hidden, a fantasy of what they might reveal…
Léonie Vanay’s work calls for the reformation of long-held beliefs; from the materials she chooses to the various forms of presentation she grants herself and others, down to the poetic titles they assign. They are as much slogans to be brandished, as they are melodies of struggle, refrains, a voice of vigilance and watchfulness to be shared. She creates pieces that are modular in every sense of the word. Artworks as weapons. The artist creates her personal and collective works within the same universal framework; otherwise, what is the point of making art? And what purpose would it serve? Art is about making life more interesting than the art itself.10 Léonie Vanay cohabits within a chosen family, an artistic community where practices, ideas, and resistances combine. It is reassuring that, throughout history, our younger generations continually unite, without hegemony, aiming for adelphity, through collective action or the synergy of friendships and ideas. From Cabaret Voltaire to Abstraction-Création, from Circle and Square to the group of La Tour Penchée11, from Fluxus to Nave Oporto, from Reena Spaulings and Guerrilla Girls to Urgent Paradise.
Art criticism often has a tendency of trying to explain, assign meaning, or to intellectualize, when an approach of slower reflection, more thoughtful observation would suffice. I create art, that's it.¹¹ Let us give in to the powerful simplicity of contemplation.
Prendre ta main, serrer nos poingsis yet another series of works which again defy conventional categorisation. I am beckoned to wonder. Is this jewelry? Are they paintings? Wall installations? Amulets and their cases? I see them as a sort of portable Combines because, like the work of Robert Rauschenberg, Léonie Vanay’s works hold understated intimacies. Assemblages that are accessible, reminiscent of the combatant's necklace in Chris Marker’s La Jetée. These ornaments, which could be seen as jewelry, or as objects of self-defense—are easily detachable from their carrier’s pouch. On the wall, the works are canvases; and when rolled up, they become functional again, evoking a kind of lived experience, like a travel pouch, or a bag of treasures. They are a demonstration of how the artist brings color into her work, with the complementary use of line. Via small sewn touches, amalgamations, and juxtapositions of yellows and browns, pinks, khakis, blues, and greens of tarps, fabrics, and plastics—each fragment recalling its origins and the function of its source. Colour also added via invitations, and collaborations that Léonie Vanay develops with those close to her, from the atmosphere and lighting created in the evolving performance Moist Light, to the stories told in Myriam Ziehli's images. The pictorial universe of the photographer gathers together friendships and shared sensibilities, preserving, contextualizing, and personalizing the works, whilst the artist herself remains in the background.
Léonie Vanay's works extend lines, addressing themes of movement, imbalance, emptiness, and personal archeologies. Whether off-kilter, static, dark, or light, they retain their musicality, their poetic essence and memorial charge. The work is fluid, continuously evolving.
And since we're talking about memories, histories, and renewal, I remember with amusement the sensual softness of a small rectangular piece made of light coloured wood that I discovered just minutes before leaving her studio. It has stayed in our memory, Françoise's and mine, ever since our first visit to Lausanne... Léonie, however, has completely forgotten about it! And so, it never stops…
Don't stop
Don't you stop
We won't stop
Don't you stop
So many roads and so much opinion
So much shit to give in, give in to
So many rules and so much opinion
So much bullshit but we won't give in
Stop, we won't stop
Don't you stop
I can't live if you stop13
Émilie Flory
Brussels, Paris, Manosque, July 2024 (amended September 2025)
1. & 13. Verse by Johanna Fateman and Kathleen Hanna in the song "Hot Topic" by Le Tigre, from the album Le Tigre, 1999, Mr Lady Records.
2. Françoise Mottier, member of the Aparté committee.
3. Reference to Monique Wittig's quote: "They say they will shake the world like lightning and thunder" (translated) from Les Guérillères, 1969.
4. Nicholas Fox Weber, chapter on Anni Albers in La bande du Bauhaus – Six maîtres du modernisme, Fayard, 2015.
5. Niki de Saint Phalle, 1961: "The painting is crying, the painting is dead. I killed the painting. It is reborn. War without victims." Translated quote from Niki de Saint Phalle: Bilder, Figuren, Phantastische Gärten, Prestel, 1987. Reprinted in Le Nouveau Réalisme, Centre Pompidou / Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2007.
6. In 1969, Tania Mouraud, after visiting documenta in Kassel, decided to burn all her paintings in the courtyard of the Villejuif Hospital in France, marking a new direction in her work. Malcolm Morley and Loïc Raguénès both transformed one of their works as a form of protest against institutional authority. In 1974, in Paris, during one of his exhibitions, Morley attempted (unsuccessfully) to paint the word "fake" on his painting Buckingham Palace with First Prizewith a water pistol filled with purple paint (the royal color). Later, he disrupted an auction by declaring, "This is laundry money," and managed to nail the pistol onto the canvas in the upper right corner, diagonally opposite the corner where the prize winning work was hanging. (Jean-Claude Lebensztejn, Malcolm Morley, Itinéraires, Mamco, 2002). In January 2014, during his solo exhibition Classement de nageuses at the Centre of image/imatge in Orthez, Loïc Raguénès challenged the requirement of having to present his work Véronique Delmas, from the FRAC Aquitaine collection, a partner of the project. He hung the canvas facing the wall, made a small painting on the back, and gave the piece a new title.
7. Marabout, bout de ficelle is a French children's word game that involves stringing together phrases or words, creating iterative or cumulative sequences. This inspired the incremental and evolving method used in the transformation of Vanay’s works.
8. Reference to Léonie Vanay's works Consider the Hand Rather than the Lock, Les toiles, and Faire sécher ses armes.
9. Anni Albers, "On Jewelry," lecture given at Black Mountain College on March 25, 1942. Typewritten text from in the archives of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, Connecticut.
10. Affirmation inspired by Robert Filliou, an artist of the Fluxus movement, quoted as stating: "Art is about making life more interesting than the art itself."
11. La Tour Penchée group appears in Virginia Woolf's essay The Artist and Politics, where the author deconstructs masculinity, particularly how English intellectuals were formed before World War II. Collection (dis)continued, Éditions de la variation, 2024.
12. Richard Tuttle interview with Ellen Lubell in September 1972, from Fil de fer / crayon / Ombre: Les éléments de Richard Tuttle, in Richard Tuttle Wire Pieces, Éditions CAPC Bordeaux, 1986.