Art in dialogue
An insight into the Swiss Post collection
Rich Content Section
The Art Department would like to invite you to a new public series of discussions with artists, held in conjunction with the recently released publication about Swiss Post’s art collection. During moderated discussions with selected artists, we aim to shed light on key themes of the collection, make the publication accessible to a wider audience and, above all, highlight the artistic practices of the featured artists. With their expertise and diverse backgrounds, discussion partners from various disciplines will enrich the dialogue and open up new perspectives.
The events will take place at Swiss Post branches and are aimed at art enthusiasts and the general public.
The next conversations
Jean-Vincent Simonet
Thursday, 16 April 2026, 6.00 p.m., Lausanne
Jean-Vincent Simonet (artist, Paris and Zurich) in conversation with Claus Gunti (art historian, writer and curator; lecturer at École cantonale d’art de Lausanne, ECAL); moderation: Danaé Panchaud (director Centre de la photographie Genève)
Jean-Vincent Simonet (born in 1991 in Bourgoin-Jallieu, France; currently living in Paris and Zurich) takes photography far beyond its traditional borders. For his works, he uses digital images only as raw material, which he transforms in an alchemical process: he prints on unstable material, lets ink flow on plastic and manually manipulates the still-wet pigments. From this physical destruction emerge images of aesthetic excess, in which bodies, landscapes and technology are fused into complex worlds. In Simonet’s works, the dividing lines between photography and painting, between digital precision and analogue chance and between the real and the imaginary are completely blurred.
In an interview with Claus Gunti, the artist provides an insight into these experimental working methods. Together, they examine how exploring media thresholds challenges our image perception and what new perspectives digital practices open up today. Gunti brings to the discussion his expertise from the ECAL research project Soft Photography, which studies the emotional impact of computer-generated aesthetics. The talk will cover everything from the surface’s haptic materiality to Simonet’s current interest in AI, the virtual worlds of computer games and the rapid circulation of transient images.
The conversation will be held in French.
Douglas Mandry
Friday, 3 July 2026, 6.00 p.m., Swiss Post branch 8021 Zürich 1 Sihlpost
Douglas Mandry (artist, Zurich) in conversation with Daniel Farinotti (professor of glaciology at ETH Zurich and at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL); moderation: Damian Christinger (independent curator, writer and lecturer)
The conversation will be held in German.