MAZE X Particolare

A COLLECTIBLE EXHIBITION

Between 2024 and 2025, MAZE collaborated with Particolare on a series of exhibitions that explored alternative formats for presenting and experiencing art. Conceived as a hybrid between an exhibition and an art salon, Particolare proposed a more intimate, curated approach—one that questioned the conventions of the traditional art fair model.

This collaboration began with the inaugural edition in Vienna, held at the Palais Hübner Kursalon. Within the historic setting of this 19th-century venue, the project introduced a distilled format: no booths, no visual excess, but a carefully composed environment where works could be experienced with clarity and focus. Drawing inspiration from early salon culture, the exhibition emphasized proximity, dialogue, and curatorial precision.

The Vienna edition brought together a significant group of internationally acclaimed artists, including Michelangelo Pistoletto, Joseph Kosuth, Alicja Kwade, Wim Delvoye, Tacita Dean, and Tomás Saraceno, alongside emerging voices. Their works were presented in collaboration with leading galleries such as Lisson Gallery, Esther Schipper, Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Air de Paris, and Nagel Draxler, among others—reinforcing the exhibition’s position between institutional quality and collector-oriented presentation.

Following this first chapter, the collaboration extended into the Swiss Alps, where the format was adapted across different contexts. In Crans-Montana (Lens), MIRRORMAP unfolded as a site-specific exhibition in dialogue with the landscape surrounding the Fondation Opale, exploring the intersections of technology, empathy, and artificial intelligence.

In Gstaad, the focus shifted toward moving image with Media and Mind Control, a curated film and video program examining altered states of perception and the power of audiovisual media to reshape experience. Presented in an intimate setting, the program included seminal works by artists such as Tony Conrad, Adrian Piper, and Dan Graham, creating a dialogue across generations of moving image practices.

The collaboration concluded in St. Moritz, where MIRRORMAP was reinterpreted as a screening program. Here, the exhibition’s core themes—centered on perception, mirror systems, and technological networks—were translated into a temporal format, emphasizing the circulation of images and affects across both human and artificial systems.

Together, these projects formed a coherent yet evolving body of work, each iteration responding to its specific environment while maintaining a shared curatorial direction. This collaboration marks a distinct chapter in MAZE’s development—one rooted in experimentation and exchange—and contributed to a broader reflection on exhibition-making, spatial experience, and the evolving role of the viewer.

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Photo cover: Wim Delvoye, Venus Italica (2023; detail), Baptiste Janin

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