Blueman On Tour
Like Blueman, the Blueman on Tour exhibition was made to travel. Having shed seven moults for eight new skins over the last 20 years, the Blueman On Tour exhibition is more spectacular than anything before with a pavilion/marquee measuring 12 metre wide, 18 metres long and 3 metres high, held up by an aluminium frame and shaped like a giant Blueman. New printing techniques means high-quality images can be reproduced straight onto the tarpaulins that have the same texture and suppleness as Blueman’s skin. With its playful approach and simple and naive museographic language, the Blueman On Tour exhibition delights visitors of every age, providing them with the tools they need to create their own narrative. Like Blueman, the exhibition invites visitors to slip out of their daily routine for an affectionately offbeat experience.
Through this exhibition, Blueman presents, reproduces and shares a multitude of little stories and seemingly unexceptional anecdotes, but these tales are always brimming with humanity and forge real ties. A selection of 34 images presenting Blueman out and about provides the basis of the exhibition. There are no texts directly on display, but the catalogue handed out free to every visitor is like a map, guiding them as they wander around. Blueman puts in a personal appearance at the exhibition venues, creating some emulation in the town and sparking the curiosity of passers-by. These outings augment the simple and poetic stories and form a natural complement to the exhibition.
Stopovers on the tour
30.07-29.08.21
Blueman headed to Gibellina with his portable Filmomatic, an interactive machine that can produce flip books with a sequence of 32 images, a souvenir gift for his astounding encounters. Find out more at https://www.imagesgibellina.it/en
05.09-27.09.20
The Blueman on Tour exhibition set up on the Vaudois Riviera during Festival Images Vevey from 5-27 September 2020, where it drew much public and media attention with almost 20,000 visitors in less than a month.
Find out more at https://www.images.ch/fr/artistes/30-andre-kuenzy/
01.11.19-05.01.20
After its launch at Place du Port in Neuchâtel on 5 September 2019, the Blueman exhibition marquee set up in the main courtyard of the Lieu Unique venue in Nantes, where it stayed from 1 November to 5 January 2020, drawing over 20,000 visitors.
Find our more at https://www.lelieuunique.com/evenement/blueman-on-tour/
05.09-25.09.19
The exhibition was first inaugurated at Place du Port in Neuchâtel,
Blueman’s first host city and adopted home. With more than 2,000 visitors from 5-25 September 2019, the first stage of the tour, on the banks of the lake, was a big hit!
A publication with dynamic content
At each stopover with the exhibition marquee, a series of photo portraits was produced showing the host town’s citizens and their encounter with Blueman. These special moments were then projected all around the walls of the exhibition, forging ties between the habitants of the different host cities. These portraits of men, women and children also featured on Blueman’s social media pages. These fleeting poetic instants epitomise the spirit of this one-off project and build a real community around Blueman and his exhibition.
The collection of photographs from each stopover depicts the experience of Blueman and the people he met along the way. A selection of images has been published, each with a poetic, or sometimes enigmatic, caption. The exhibition and Blueman’s adventures live on in this small photo book and, aside from the undeniable artistic aspect, the publication leaves a tangible trace of each excursion.
The production team
André Kuenzy
Blueman
André is Blueman’s creator, but also his avatar. An architect from EPFL, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, he is passionate about gastronomy, travel and inventions of all kinds, and he designed the exhibition. He is the founder of production company Ombudfilsm and of Rhinocéros. He spotlights regional heritage but is extremely outward-looking. André explores every discipline and seeks out unexpected encounters, offering a mischievous and astute view of his environment.
Patrick Gyger
Advisor
The former director of Maison d’Ailleurs museum of the extraordinary in Yverdon-les-Bains (1991-2011) showed “Blueman, the Rhinoceros and the Solution of the World” in 2005. From November 2019 to January 2020, the exhibition set up at the Lieu Unique culture centre in Nantes, which Patrick now manages. He describes himself as a “historian of the future” and accompanies the Blueman on Tour project as it travels from place to place.
Harold Weber
Technical director
Since 2003, Harold has worked in the realm of contemporary music, theatre and broadcasting. He works as a technical director for different structures (Théâtre du Pommier, Théâtre du Concert, Théâtre de l’Echandole, Festi’Neuch, the International Puppet Festival) and creates for an array of different companies. He takes care of the technical side on each one of the exhibition’s stopovers.
Stéphane Mercier
Sound
Stéphane is founder and director of Ionison Studio. This talented mixer composes original scores for institutional films, advertisements and the cinema. He faithfully recorded the sound on Blueman’s numerous treks and shared his valuable expertise on sound diffusion techniques for the exhibition.
Les Amis de l’Homme Bleu (AHB)
Association
This “Friends of Blueman” association brings together partners, artists and personalities who have met Blueman. Its role is to produce and disseminate Blueman’s work. It thus co-produced the Blueman on Tour exhibition and administers its assets. The Committee comprises Julien Spacio (president), Blaise Faessler (vice-president and treasurer) and Laetitia Gauchat (secretary).
Jacques Hainard
Advisor
Director and curator of the Ethnographic Museum of Neuchâtel from 1980 to 2006, and director of the Ethnographic Museum of Geneva, Jacques shares his expertise on how the project should evolve. His experience and unique approach confer international reach, ensuring an unmistakeable position in the contemporary museum landscape.
Laetitia Gauchat
Production assistant
Laetitia’s unusual career path, from economics to law, criminology and museology, bring a valuable new eye. Her background also includes extensive audiovisual experience, making her highly versatile and pragmatic.
Loïc Pipoz
IT and projection
After studying IT from 1997 to 2000, Loïc started his own IT service company in September 2000, working for a variety of businesses, associations and freelancers in areas such as graphic design, video and sound studio maintenance. He soon joined ventures such as La Plage des Six Pompes (2000), Bikini Test (2000), Le Centre de Culture ABC (2004) and Les Etranges Nuits du Cinéma (2001). He took care of aspects such as promotion, coordination, projection techniques and IT systems, and quickly became a specialist in new technologies.
Notter+Vigne
Art work
Founded by Julien Notter and Sébastien Vigne, Notter+Vigne Sàrl is a graphic design studio specialised in cultural promotion, publishing and institutional communication. Based in Lausanne, its clients include museums, publishers and architects.