Daughter of Swiss-born filmmaker and farmer, Alberto Perrin, Carmen Perrin immigrated to Switzerland at the age of 6, fleeing the Bolivian dictatorship. A graduate of the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Genève in 1980, where she later taught, she began her career creating sculptures based on the experimentation of interactions between the physical possibilities of materials – mainly industrial elements (iron wire, rubber, innertubes, bricks) – and the potentialities of the artist’s body (Untitled, 1986). The formulation of raw material based on basic gestures creates a “spatial writing”, made of solids and voids, which, through dialogue, reveals the architecture and history of the site in which it is presented. From the 1990s onwards, C. Perrin intervened on a greater scale, often in situ; but whether it be temporary constructions in exhibition spaces or perennial interventions in public space, we can identify the constitutive elements of her artistic language: the almost experimental use of industrial materials confronted to the measure of her own body, the desire to examine and assess a place, or her interest in “marking out” a territory (Contextes, 2004). Her interventions are often created in collaboration with architects: Daniele Marquès for the maternity clinic of Luzern in 1996-1997; Georges Descombes in Grenay, Pas-de-Calais (Bleu Grenay, 2009), where the esplanade is covered with a blue stone layer whose appearance changes according to the climate and the sun. She later continued her experimentation on her own body in the space around it, by integrating drawing: the Tracés tournés, a series begun in 2008, consist of large drawings in graphite, in which the circles are drawn based on the yardstick of the size of her body. C. Perrin herself calls it a sculptural work: “As I worked, I really felt as though I was ‘mounting’ a drawing, as potters do when they form a clay pot with their hands.”
Claire BERNARDI
See this illustrated text on the website of the Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions
