“The Red Herring”

From the university magazine Zett

Exhibition view «The Red Herring», Cabaret Voltaire 2024. Photo: Philipp Hänger

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Author Eva Vögtli

From 9 November 2024 until summer 2025, works by Master Fine Arts students will be on display at Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich’s Niederdorf district. Camille Lütjens, Carlo Travaglia, Elena Barmpa, Ice Wong Kei Suet, Laura Nan and Stéphane Nabil Petitmermet have reimagined the “Artists’ Bar”. Under the exhibition title “The Red Herring,” they lay false trails and draw surprising connections between the present and the birthplace of Dada. Salome Hohl, director of Cabaret Voltaire, accompanied the students during the creative process.

Eva Vögtli: The Cabaret Voltaire was founded in 1916 by young artists and writers and was thus the birthplace of Dada. The Dadaists were between 20 and 30 years old, similar to the six students in “The Red Herring”. Sophie Taeuber-Arp, the well-known painter and pioneer not only of Dada but also of abstraction, taught at the former Gewerbeschule, now the ZHdK. Were such parallels decisive in bringing about the collaboration with the ZHdK Master Fine Arts programme?

Salome Hohl: Yes, on the one hand there is the historical aspect. Young artists and students were and are important to Cabaret Voltaire. But it has also always been a place of coming together and diversity. It was a place for trying out things, experimenting – and ultimately Dada established itself here. I think it’s important today to show both internationally renowned artists such as Monster Chetwynd and the work of students, as in this collaboration.

How did you approach the project, and what were the requirements?

For students, the step from “off-space” and personal initiative to an institutional exhibition is a big one. When selecting the participants, in collaboration with those responsible for the Master Fine Arts programme, I placed great importance on motivation and an awareness that participation in this project also comes with a responsibility towards the history of the house. The Cabaret Voltaire is better known internationally than in Switzerland. Dada is taught in school textbooks worldwide. During a seminar week, the students received input on the history of the house and on the topic of “Artists’ Bars” – an important format in the arts, even outside of Dada. Together, we considered what an Artists’ Bar might look like today and how we would like to design such a bar together. But it was also a question of mixing practices and interests – the idea of achieving a good balance among the students.

The students bring their own interests, practices and approaches to the table. How did you manage to find a common theme?

It came as a surprise to me, but it actually makes sense: during the preparatory week, we couldn’t agree on a common theme. The Master’s students all already have a strong practice of their own and their own ideas about how they want to develop it and position themselves. At the same time, as young artists, they are still at the beginning of their careers – a sensitive moment when you don’t want to be too “framed”. I think there is also a social and very real pressure, because professionalisation in art has increased – perhaps at the expense of experimentation. So I was also confronted with my own naivety.

Throwing someone a red herring is an expression for leading someone down the wrong track. “Der Rote Hering” (The Red Herring) or “Der Goldene Ochsen” (The Golden Ox) – it’s a bit like the name of a pub. How did you come up with this title?

Since the question of different expectations was a recurring theme throughout the preparatory week, expectations actually became the theme of the exhibition. The students wanted to show contemporary art in an aesthetic and language that also corresponded to the current discourse of “contemporary”. At the same time, it was necessary to engage with the legacy of the Dadaists in order to do justice to this location. Then there was also the question of the audience’s expectations. The result was two collaborative works and several individual pieces, all of which deal with the history or architecture of the building while reflecting the respective practices of the artists. And it plays with expectations and the sometimes narrow historicisation of Dada – for example, with the fact that Dada was aesthetically much broader than assumed, that the original furnishings were probably rather simple and rustic, and with the fact that we do not own any historical works.

The interior with its tiled stove and wooden benches, as well as the wall behind it with its carved inscriptions and messages, really seem more rustic than colourful and extravagant.

We designed the interior of “The Red Herring” to look like it did in a photograph from 1940 – with anecdotal touches such as the tiled stove and the cast-iron lamp. Here, too, the aim was to break with common perceptions of Dada and art history. The wall, created by the students as a collaborative work, displays political messages alongside banal ones, just as they appear on social media today. The students are very moved by many current issues – how do politics and their own practice come together? How do you protest? Pacifism and anti-authoritarianism are also part of the history of Cabaret Voltaire. The exciting thing is that this wooden wall will remain in place for a while – at the end of the exhibition, we will see how the world has already changed again.

An art object is interpreted very differently in a bar context than in a ‘white cube’.

Salome Hohl
Tourists, vernissage visitors, amateurs, artists, bar visitors and people with very different ideas about what art is make up the Cabaret Voltaire’s audience. What other challenges does the “Artists’ Bar” format present?

Normally, temporary works are created for exhibitions – or art in architecture for eternity. Here, it’s somewhere in between. The entire interior design of the bar is part of the Artists’ Bar – it has to be functional, reasonably comfortable and robust. This is also a challenge for established artists and offers an enormous learning effect. Questions suddenly arise such as: What is art? When is something recognisable as art? An art object is interpreted very differently in a bar context than in a “white cube”, i.e. the standard white exhibition space. Many contemporary artists already conceive art for a white cube, and their studios look like white cubes too. But it can also be liberating to try something different.