3 June 2017 - 7 January 2018
The Valais Art Museum presents in Le Pénitencier "Let's Walk: take a step, take a stand", an exhibition on the subject of walking as both physical activity and social commitment. From footprints to illegal border crossings, and from mountaineering to political demonstrations, walking has been treated here in terms of the involvement of both the body and the mind: taking a step means taking a stand!
Take a step, take a stand
Walking is an everyday means of locomotion, but it also permits us to reach mountain tops and explore the world beyond our borders. It is essential to our freedom, and has been used as a rallying tool to claim civil rights. Since the 1960s, it has been used as a means of artistic expression. This exhibition brings together eight chapters on the concept of walking, through which the viewer can find artistic interventions ranging from land art to society mobilization. Building on the link between walking and nature, the exhibition explores the footprint, the risk taking, the conquest, the fall and the involvement to achieve with obedience, civil disobedience and mobilization. The Penitentiary brings together artworks by Hamish Fulton, Francis Alÿs, Martina Gmür, Fischli & Weiss, Douglas Gordon, Richard Long and also Not Vital. All exhibited artworks address the theme of walking from the point of view of the involvement of body and mind, which reinforces the notion of "taking a step is taking a stand."
