Florian Bach

Swiss installation and light artist Florian Bach returned to the Spier Light Art Festival in Stellenbosch, South Africa with the new site-specific work ‘SPILL’, in which sixteen lamps flood a riverbank with light. The work was initiated during a research residency on the farm during the 2025 edition of the festival. Industrial illumination floods the riverbank with excessive light – harsh and disproportionate. Brightness becomes an intruder. The zone appears under constant scrutiny, as if requiring perpetual observation. From above, the audience scans for anomalies, for something concealed. Nothing emerges. Only moments when projectors dim without cause, flicker, or fail. ‘SPILL’ speaks of resource exhaustion and a world nearing collapse – one from which humans have distanced themselves. Observed from height, detached, this fragment of land appears unreal. It knows no night rest, no pause. The light enforces human presence even in absence. The viewer stands not as observer but as participant in the logic of control. Florian’s practice often deploys everyday objects – axes, gas canisters, urban lighting – to draw attention to the ambiguity of these tools and materials, which can be used for both domestic purposes and acts of violence. His work deciphers social violence while poetically exposing mechanisms of humans’ domination over each other and the living world. __________ 📸 Courtesy Spier Light Art __________ Spier Light Art is co-curated by Jay Pather and @vaughn_sadie , and produced by @lightplaceorg . For the third consecutive year, we are pleased to partner with the festival to support the participation of Swiss artists through a curated residency framework. __________ #prohelvetia_johannesburg #prohelvetia_visualarts

BABEL BACH / ASPHALTE ASPHALTE is the result of a collaboration between visual artist Florian Bach and percussionist-composer Alexandre Babel. Together, they create works at the frontier between sound and visual art. For this piece, Bach designed a “signature” drum set entirely coated in tar. The black material alters the instrument’s natural resonance; Babel responds with a solo, virtuosic, multiphonic performance that probes its sonic edges. The drum set becomes sculpture. The drummer’s gesture becomes performance. Both merge into a single living entity, resonating through the visual and sonic space. Just like the ASPHALTE installation itself, this record brings music and image together into a single art object. 🎧 Limited and numbered edition – 180 copies Includes unlimited streaming via Bandcamp + high-quality downloads. 📀 Now available at KaPa Books. 🎶 Meet Alexandre Babel in The Quiet Rush, live on Saturday, November 22, @fermeasile as part of @biennaleson , together with @elsadorbath and @grimaitregilles . Credits Concept: Alexandre Babel & Florian Bach Music & performance: Alexandre Babel Sculpture & lighting design: Florian Bach Artistic collaboration: Marcello Silvio Busato Recorded, mixed & mastered by Antoine Etter – Studio Phonotope Photography: Valentin Brustaux & Florian Bach Cover design: Florian Bach @alexandre_babel @florianbach7 #AlexandreBabel #FlorianBach #Asphalte #BACHBABEL #Vinyl #ArtEdition #SoundArt #ContemporaryArt #Percussion #KaPaBooks

Welcome 𝓕𝓵𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓪𝓷 𝓑𝓪𝓬𝓱 & 𝓐𝓵𝓮𝔁𝓪𝓷𝓭𝓻𝓮 𝓑𝓪𝓫𝓮𝓵 Alexandre Babel (*1980), percussionist and composer, challenges listeners‘ expectations of conventional forms of music in his works. Visual artist Florian Bach (*1975) focuses on social violence in his work, deciphering situations that have complex political implications. Since 2014, they have been working together on projects that place sound in a new kind of relationship with visual, sculptural and spatial situations. Elements such as light, color and sculptures change the objects and their surroundings and create a counterpoint between sound and image. «Asphalte» is a performance by Babel on a sculpture by Bach, shown for the first time in 2020. At the center is a drum kit covered in bitumen. For KLANG MOOR SCHOPFE 2025, they have further developed the work in a site-specific way. @florianbach7 @alexandre_babel

LA BEAUTÉ DU MONDE 1200 anodized aluminium labels, laser engraving, 2020 Jardin Botanique Alpin, Meyrin, Geneva, CH The legacy of our time is ash. The glaciers have disappeared. The air is stale, charred, opaque and burning. The seas and oceans have overflowed and submerged the land. Water is rationed, contaminated, drained of life. Desertification is habitual and soils are barren. Forests are bare and trees no longer green as there are no insects left to pollinate them. Birds' nests are created from pieces of plastic. Animals are fierce predators for us, they are isolated. They are only images in the few books that remain. We are very few and we are armed. We have confined ourselves and systematically reject those of us who are ill. What is left of nature is kept in protected and guarded places. Oblivion and ignorance is our culture. Unregulated liberalism dominates the world. Industrial activity is growing without limits. The consequences of climate change exhibit daily. The health situation is alarming. Unknown bacteria and viruses resistant to antibiotics are growing and proliferating. A cascade of unprecedented climatic and health disasters is affecting humans, fauna and flora. The global balance is destroyed. The world is falling apart. January 2020 LA BEAUTÉ DU MONDE (The beauty of the world), an intervention on the labelling of the plants all over the botanical garden of the city of Meyrin. The installation tells a catastrophic story and heralds a tragic future. The labels covering the plates identifying the plants refer to the history of mankind and its cycles of destruction in an environmental, health and political context, which is devastated. Projected in a time when ignorance and loss of acquired knowledge is the norm, the visitor turns to the diversity and beauty of trees and plants, priceless gems that need to be protected. Rédaction: Florian Bach, @annelauresahy , Arnaud Robin Corrections: Simone Bach - Montage: Joëlle Masselot, @johannisson_lus Engraving: RB Gravure Vernier, @betscharthomas et Roland Betschart - Thanks to @darius_golchan Photo: @isameister , Florian Bach #jardinbotanique, @meyrinculture

6 July 3.30 and 4pm consider listening at @haubrokfoundation Berlin Lichtenberg Before @klangmoorschopfe in september and as part of the closing events of the exhibition consider listening at @haubrokfoundation / Fahrbereitschaft in Lichtenberg, Berlin, we will be presenting two performances of the work ASPHALTE with @alexandre_babel at 3.30 and 4 PM . . . #considerlistening #asphalte #solodrums #drumsandteer #lichtenberg #fahrbereitschaft #haubrockfoundation

As part of the closing events of the exhibition consider listening at @haubrokfoundation / Fahrbereitschaft in Lichtenberg, Berlin, we will be presenting two performances of the work Asphalte with @florianbach7 at 3.30 and 4 PM . . . #considerlistening #asphalte #solodrums #drumsandteer #lichtenberg #fahrbereitschaft #haubrockfoundation

HORST Wood recovered with bitumen, flag, light. 1400 x 900 x 1500 cm, Chur 2021 I have created two installations in which the question of occupation of territory, human domination over others and control over nature was addressed by producing installations entirely covered in tar. In 2019, OASE, consisted of a torn black flag planted on an asphalt surface that had been poured directly onto the grass. The installation, which overlooked the city below, seemed to threaten its inhabitants. In 2021, a few meters further on, I created HORST on the roof of an apartment building. This installation - like a fortress ready for military aggression or a refuge for the displaced (who knows?) - was made up of blackened wooden cabins perched 30 meters above the ground. At the summit, as if to mark the taking over of this territory, a black flag was flying. Preferring to use symbols and poetry, I've avoided using the national symbols that represent the state and its governments for a long time, because they call for the nationalism I'm combatting. Today, in light of the global political situation, where entire communities and populations are being held hostage by fascists, where humanist discourse is being inverted to disguise totalitarian and criminal intentions, where racist, xenophobic, anti-human and anti-social groupuscules are proud to speak out, but above all in the intolerable situation in Gaza, where genocide is being committed under our eyes with the support of European governments, I cannot remain silent. As heir to the cosmopolitanism of the post-war generation, my background and my family's history oblige me to do so. This is why, even if the Palestinian flag is also the symbol of a State, it is today the symbol of anti-fascist and anti-colonial struggles. For this reason, I'm adding it digitaly to my two installations. Production: @art_public_chur Curator: Luciano Fasciati. Art Historian: Annina Pandiani. Consctruction assistant: @marcellosilviobusato , Photography: @yanikbuerkli , Ralph Feiner #antifa, #antifascist #smashfascists #freegaza #fightfascist #artistsagainstapartheid @artists.against.apartheid / @apartheidfreezone.switzerland / @againstapartheid .

OASE Textile, bitumen, aluminium, tar 700 x 350 x 500 cm Begegnung 2019 Chur (CH), 2019 I have created two installations in which the question of occupation of territory, human domination over others and control over nature was addressed by producing installations entirely covered in tar. In 2019, OASE, consisted of a torn black flag planted on an asphalt surface that had been poured directly onto the grass. The installation, which overlooked the city below, seemed to threaten its inhabitants. In 2021, a few meters further on, I created HORST on the roof of an apartment building. This installation - like a fortress ready for military aggression or a refuge for the displaced (who knows?) - was made up of blackened wooden cabins perched 30 meters above the ground. At the summit, as if to mark the taking over of this territory, a black flag was flying. Preferring to use symbols and poetry, I've avoided using the national symbols that represent the state and its governments for a long time, because they call for the nationalism I'm combatting. Today, in light of the global political situation, where entire communities and populations are being held hostage by fascists, where humanist discourse is being inverted to disguise totalitarian and criminal intentions, where racist, xenophobic, anti-human and anti-social groupuscules are proud to speak out, but above all in the intolerable situation in Gaza, where genocide is being committed under our eyes with the support of European governments, I cannot remain silent. As heir to the cosmopolitanism of the post-war generation, my background and my family's history oblige me to do so. This is why, even if the Palestinian flag is also the symbol of a State, it is today the symbol of anti-fascist and anti-colonial struggles. For this reason, I'm adding it digitally today to my two installations. Organiser: ART-PUBLIC Chur, @art_public_chur Curators: Luciano Fasciati and Misia Bernasconi Photos: @yanikbuerkli , Florian Bach #antifa, #antifascist #smashfascists #freegaza #fightfascist #artistsagainstapartheid #artistsagainsttrump @artists.against.apartheid / @apartheidfreezone.switzerland / @againstapartheid.art /

HALID - SPIER 480 x 1309 x 200 cm Scaffolding, Wood, Metal halide floodlights, computer program Spier Light Art, Stellenbosch, South Africa 2017 - 2025 HALID consists of six floodlights containing high-pressure discharge lamps (metal halide). They illuminate evenly one wall which stands in strong contrast to the surrounding landscape. According to a phasing score, one or more of the spotlights turn off, creating “holes” along the illuminated wall, like a flaw in a system. The installation is reminiscent of border surveillance strategies and freight zone lighting. The floodlights used in the installation are used in certain spaces to control or limit access. In HALID, they are used as a metaphor; the ones that go out leave a gap, which suggests a passageway, or are the faulty elements of a system that we want to make secure. Questioning mankind's ability to build tools that enable it to reign over the living, HALID invites to reflect on the position of the powerful over the vulnerable, on its capacity to organise itself in order to solidify its supremacist will over people and nature. Consequently to provide itself with structures and institutions to accomplish it. In other words, solidifying the laws and mechanisms of exclusion. Curators : @vaughn_sadie , Charles Maisles, Lightplace [→] Technical direction: Ryaaz Payne Construction team: Bernito Smith, Botae.u, @tashreeq_achmad Support: Nexus Scaffolding : Heinrich Calitz, @prohelvetia_johannesburg Photography: @gerhardtctz , Florian Bach

BACH-BABEL ASPHALTE Drum kit and various instruments recovered with bitumen, asphalt, limestone from Jura, aluminium, steel, 2020 Asphalte is a drum solo of Alexandre Babel, in collaboration with Florian Bach. It is an 40 minutes lenght solo performance where the only acoustic source is a drumset covered with bitumen. The drums becomes a monochromic sculptural object engaging an intense man-instrument dialogue. Conception. @alexandre_babel & @florianbach7 Music & performance : @alexandre_babel Drum kit, sculpture and Light design: @florianbach7 Realisation: @marcellosilviobusato Sound: @nadan____r Production : @festival_lesamplitudes - La Chaux de Fonds (CH) Thanks to: Wiesen55 e.V Berlin, @art_kombinat_ev Berlin: Jürgen Konradi & Achim Kling,Ruth Waldeyer, @brunopocheron , Paul Klier

Swiss installation and lighting designer Florian Bach (@florianbach7 ) presented his existing work ‘HALID’ at this year’s Spier Light Art Festival in Stellenbosch. The work consists of six floodlights containing high-pressure discharge lamps (metal halide). These illuminate a blank wall, which stands in stark contrast to the surrounding landscape. According to a phasing score, some of the floodlights turn off, creating “holes” along the wall, like flaws in a system. The installation is reminiscent of border surveillance strategies and fright zone lighting. ‘HALID’ invites viewers to reflect on humankind’s drive to dominate, organise, and institutionalise power over others and nature, solidifying authority and exclusion. Florian will return to the farm next year for a residency to produce a new site-specific work for the festival. __________ 📸 courtesy the artist __________ #prohelvetia_johannesburg #prohelvetia_visualart @spierwinefarm @lightplaceorg

I am pleased to announce my participation in the Spier Light Art 2025 exhibition to be held in Stellenbosch, South Africa, from March 21st to April 21st 2025. This exhibition marks the start of a residency in the Cape Province initiated by curator Vaughn Sadie. The residency is supported by Pro Helvetia. At this occasion, I will show HALID who consists of six high-pressure discharge lamps illuminating a white wall who is strongly contrasting with its surrounding landscape. According to a phasing score, some floodlights turn off, creating gaps that evoke flaws in control systems. Reflecting on border surveillance and rejection structures, HALID questions humankind’s drive to dominate, organize, and institutionalize power over others and nature, solidifying authority and exclusion. @vaughn_sadie @spierwinefarm @prohelvetia_johannesburg @apartheidfreezone.switzerland F*CK Trump F*UCK Musk F*CK Netanyahu Smash Fascism