Located on the shores of Lake Lugano, Switzerland—in the heart of a lush garden characteristic of Ticino and surrounded by the mountains of Monte San Salvatore, Monte Generoso and Monte San Giorgio—from April, the Bally Foundation will be moored in the heart of a 1930s building that is entirely oriented towards the landscape: Villa Heleneum. Drawing on the narrative potential of this exceptional setting, its history and myths, the Bally Foundation’s inaugural exhibition highlights the existing porosity in the relationship between interiority and exteriority.

"Un Lac inconnu" (An Unknown Lake) is first and foremost an invitation to the landscapes and surrounding nature to penetrate the interior of the place, to take possession, resonate and overflow it in order to break down the boundaries between inside and outside, and to question our different relationships with the environment.

But more than an experience that encourages observation and recognition of our surroundings, "Un Lac inconnu" is above all a dive into ourselves. Faced with the landscape at a standstill, the phenomenon of contemplation allows for synchronicity: a common vibration between what is happening outside and inside, deep within each of us. This introspective inaugural exhibition takes its title from the words of Marcel Proust when he attempts to describe the meticulous exploration of the human soul and its underlying unconsciousness in his book, "Le Temps Retrouvé" (Time Regained).

Artists:

Vito Acconci, Wilfrid Almendra, Caroline Bachmann, Oliver Beer, Mathias Bensimon, Angela Bulloch, Ligia Dias, Adélaïde Feriot, Karim Forlin, Tania Gheerbrant, Petrit Halilaj & Alvaro Urbano, Yannick Haenel, Rebecca Horn, Paul Maheke, Hélène Muheim, Mel O’Callaghan, Philippe Parreno, Elise Peroi, Constant Puyo, Emilija Škarnulytė, Haim Steinbach, Willa Wasserman