Anne Blanchet embarked on her career as an artist in the United States in 1983, with an invitation to the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. The work of minimalist artists such as Judd, Carl Andre, Ryman, Serra, and Walter de Maria appealed to her, but it was the work of James Turrell on space and light which had a particular influence on her. From such confrontations she retained “a fondness for extreme tensions in a radical spareness, while exacerbating a very physical involvement of the body and the senses”. (Françoise Jaunin, Dessins de lumière et Musique Visuelle, 24 Heures, 13 September 2000).
From 1984 to 1989, Anne Blanchet produced large works, akin to architectures of water and light. Spaces for thinking. Her own work, focused above all on light, space and movement, was underpinned by a simplicity of lines, an economy of means, the radical nature of the subject and an absence of any textural gesture. Light as a revealer of movement (Emergences, 1992-95) and a drawing tool (Light Drawings, from 1994 on).
For Bex et Arts 1996, “Babylon, a hanging garden“, Anne Blanchet “suspended” the mountains on the other side of the valley on five large panels of reflecting glass, set in the exhibition grounds. The orientation of each of these panels had been worked out in such a way that the landscape toppled from one to the next for the onlooker, even when this latter stood motionless in front of the piece (XLVII, 1966, the photo of which was used for the cover of the 1996-1997 Pro Helvetia reports).
Movement, light, changes of colour intensity caused by light... she then set her sights on what she calls “visual music”. Contemporary dance and music have always been important for her (Simone Forti, Trisha Brown, Laura Dean, Karol Armitage, Cage, Takemitsu, Pärt, Pierre Henry, Feldmann, Grisey, etc.)
It was with Portes/Doors 97, Visual Music, 1997, that Anne Blanchet produced her first “visual music” piece. Five sliding glass doors (550 x 300 x 1500 cm) permanently opened and closed, each one at a different rhythm. Installation in constant motion, independently of people passing (Forum d'Art Contemporarin, Sierre; MDJ Gallery, Neuchâtel, 1997).
With the three Passages, Visual Music installations, she presented a series of ten 20-foot long level-crossing barriers, each one rising and falling at a different rhythm, first face to face ( Bex et Arts, 1999), and subsequently at an angle and mounted on 10-foot stands (Sierre, 1999; Geneva, 2000). “A mind-boggling ballet, each barrier has its own time play, controlled by computer [...] for a configuration that is never the same twice. [...] The imagination lets itself be ensnared, spellbound by the range emanating from this never synchronous crossing. Paradoxically, the whole thing conjures up the density and the abyssal tranquillity of ocean depths.” (Lisa de Rycke, Anne Blanchet chorégraphie le souffle, Le Temps, 18 June 1999).
Anne Blanchet is forever opening doors, and passages. Image of life, barriers crossed, and barriers to be raised.
In 1999, in a public park (Villa Bernasconi, Geneva, exhibition Le Privé et l'Intime/Privacy and Intimacy), she arranged three folding doors made of white metal, each one driven by a different rhythm of opening and closing. In addition, two doors closed when you drew near. Ouverture Pli/ Opening Fold, 1999, carried on her line of thinking about opening, folding, blockage and passage.
In November 1999, Anne Blanchet replaced all the doors in the hall-Palermo exhibition apartment, in Geneva, with fixed glass panels: Arrêt sur Image/Freeze Frame. “The doors of the apartment were replaced by fixed glass panels. Blocked and ajar, these “new” doors could be neither opened nor closed. The usual to-and-fro movement of doors was broken. Ordinarily used to conceal and preserve privacy, the doors are replaced by see-through glass. These fixed glass panels, placed obliquely in the opening, are like ghosts of doors. They allow visitors to enter, but alter their look. Akin to chicanes which offer visitors another experience of the place. Also raising the issue of privacy and intimacy, the movement at hall-Palermo is frozen, for a split second, and the apartment is offered to the onlooking eye.” (Anne Blanchet, 1999).
For the exhibition Bex et Arts 02, Anne Blanchet constructed an installation with a 200,000 volt power supply in an underground chamber. A pendulum swinged from side to side above a steel mirror. As soon as it got close to the mass of steel, it caused an entanglement of electric arcs which broke when it moved away. She responded by an installation showing attraction, the attraction between two poles (Foudre/Lightning, 2002).
From this installation she produced two dance-like video works (Foudre 1/Lightning 1 and Foudre 2/Lightning 2). The electric arcs develop in slow motion. Lines of fire, veined with blue, which arch, draw close, move away, and merge. The actual sound of lightning, slowed down, is just like heartbeats.
Anne Blanchet is currently working on an art project for the new Fribourg University, Pérolles II. She will be installing 18 16-foot long level crossing barriers in an area 220 m/720 ft long, with each barrier fitted from one end to the other with white neon. Fixed on 11-foot poles, these barriers will rise and fall, each to a different rhythm. By day there will be coloured choreography (red poles and barriers). And by night, the ballet of red rods will turn into a ballet of white light, which will play on the floor and faÁades, and in the nearest trees (Pont de lumière/Light Bridge, 2005).
Since 1994, in tandem with her installation work, Anne Blanchet has been producing pieces closely linked with light - her Light Drawings. Sheets of plexiglas, several centimetres thick, are cut. The line of the cut delimits variable fields of light, thus creating light drawings. “It is light that is sculpted by Anne Blanchet, not the plexiglas sheet which remains perfectly flat, despite the impression it gives of having been hollowed out. This encounter is never stopped in time. It is an instant captured by the onlooker, witness to this on-going recommencement: the composition of the drawing representing elementary geometric forms - line or square - and planes evoking architectural features - a wall, a floor, a ceiling - is different with each variation of orientation, and each variation in the brightness of the light. The space of the work is altered when the areas of shade are reversed, turning a positive plane into a negative one [...].
The whole body of work produced by Anne Blanchet, whose visual beauty invites contemplation, thus invariably prompts viewers to reflect on and question the complex act of looking. The spectator experiments with the fragility of his/her own perception and inability to distinguish between the real and the apparent. Alternatively, viewers on the contrary discover the unsuspected possibilities of seeing the imperceptible. They evolve from the perceptible, physical world to the world of thought.” (Caroline Nicod, curator at the Lausanne Museum of Fine Art, Anne Blanchet/ Le passage de la matière à l'immatériel. Musiques Visuelles 1997-1999, Gustave Buchet Prize, 2000. Catalogue).
There have been many recent exhibitions, including The Spirit of White, Beyeler Gallery, Basel, 2003-04 and Light Drawings, Alice Pauli Gallery, Lausanne, 2003. Gustave Buchet Prize, 2000, Lausanne (catalogue book and video. Essays by Caroline Nicod, curator, and Vincent Barras). Echanges 2003, Kunsthaus Langenthal (catalogue, essays by Marianne Burki, curator, and Caroline Nicod, curator). Works in private and public collections in Switzerland, Belgium, France, Cambodia and the United States).