works 2010 - 2018

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Installation view, Swiss Pavillion, 57th Venice BiennialPhoto: Ugo Carmeni
Installation view, Swiss Pavillion, 57th Venice Biennial
Photo: Ugo Carmeni
Installation view, Swiss Pavillion, 57th Venice BiennialPhoto: Ugo Carmeni
Installation view, Swiss Pavillion, 57th Venice Biennial
Photo: Ugo Carmeni
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Flora 2017

Synchronized double-sided film installation,
shared soundtrack, 12 audio channels,
duration: 30 min, loop,
overall dimensions vary with installation
Permanent Collection Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA);
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; National Museum of Art, Osaka;
Kunsthaus Zürich, Museum Sammlung Goetz, Munich

Synopsis

Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler’s Flora and the accompanying work, Bust, is based on their discoveries about the unknown American artist Flora Mayo, with whom the Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti had a love affair in Paris in the 1920s. While Giacometti is one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century, Mayo’s oeuvre has been destroyed and her biography was previously relegated as a footnote in Giacometti scholarship.

Hubbard / Birchler reframe this history and bring Mayo’s compelling biography to life through a feminist perspective that interweaves reconstruction, reenactment, and documentary into a hybrid form of storytelling. As a double-sided film installation, each side of Flora reveals a different story while sharing the same soundtrack. The work is conceived as a conversation between Mayo and her son, David—whom the artists discovered after an exhaustive search, living near Los Angeles. Flora generates a multifaceted dialogue—between a mother and son, Mayo and Giacometti, Paris and Los Angeles, and past and present.

Credits

Executive Producers for Flora
Walter A. Bechtler Foundation, Zürich
Suzanne Deal Booth, Los Angeles
Sammlung Goetz, München

Further Support
Aargauer Kuratorium, Aarau
Burger Collection, Hong Kong / Zürich
Pro Helvetia, Zürich

Additional Information

Review By Gregory Volk

press release

At the Edge of the Frame 2017
Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler
in conversation with Philipp Kaiser

Exhibition History

Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Charlotte
“Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler: Flora”
September 23, 2023 – January 21, 2024

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth
“Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler: Flora”
September 5, 2021 – January 16, 2022

Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver
“Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler: Flora”
September 20, 2019 – April 5, 2020

The National Museum of Art Osaka, Japan
“NMAO collection with Alberto Giacometti II.”
August 27 – December 8, 2019

Giacometti Foundation, Paris
“Alberto Giacometti –
Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler: Flora.”
April 5 – June 9, 2019

Museum Sammlung Goetz at the Bayerische
Akademie der Schönen Künste, Munich

“Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler: Flora.”
March 1 – May 24, 2019

LACMA, Los Angeles County Museum of Art 
“Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler: Flora.”
January 20 – April 7, 2019

The National Museum of Art Osaka, Japan
“Travelers: Stepping into the Unknown.”
January 21 – May 6, 2018

Swiss Pavilion, 57th Venice Biennial
“Women of Venice”
Mai 13 – November 26, 2017

Preview

Introduction by Andrea Karnes, Chief Curator
Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth , USA.
September 5, 2021 – January 16, 2022