The exhibition Laughing Stock gives carte blanche to the artist Mathias Pfund, who has chosen to work with the museum’s extant collections by re-hanging one of the upper floor spaces. His vision explores the “École du gris”, or school of grey painting, argued by some to have flourished in La Chaux-de-Fonds between the two world wars. While the school is mentioned in a variety of sources, its actual historical existence is far from clear: it is often the object of ambiguous intentions that say more about the aesthetic assumptions of the critics than about the intrinsic qualities of the art itself. Art history has seen other so-called “écoles du gris” identified with similar arguments.

Pfund’s project is rooted in dual meaning, offering an arm’s-length study of how art history manufactures meaning by placing greater emphasis on the interpretation, tastes, and values brought to bear on the painting than on the painting itself. The aim is to ask questions of the image of art and to explore the ideological tensions it gives rise to. Pfund’s intervention is camouflaged by the institution’s display practices and draws on its authority to write a narrative that probes images and the values associated with art.

With works by Charles, Aimé, Aurèle and François Barraud, Pierre-Eugène Bouvier, Georges Dessouslavy, Charles Humbert, Pierre Jeanneret, Guido and Albert Locca, Jeanne Pellet, Lucien Schwob, Madeleine Woog and Philippe Zysset.

Mathias Pfund was born in 1992. He lives and works in Geneva.

The exhibition was made possible thanks to the support of the Fondation Nestlé pour l’Art.