MR FABULOUS
Web :
www.fabienpiccand.com
Bio :
Fabien Piccand was heavily into street art as a teenager, working with stencil from 1986 to 1991 on Geneva as well as New York City walls. He then took up interior architecture studies at Geneva's School of Applied Arts until 1996, concluding them with a diploma on the post-industrial Artamis site, whose occupancy he initiated and where he works today.
This project consisted of a dozen repurposed buildings in downtown Geneva, housing several artist studios, cafes, event locations, a theater and shops. Over time it has also become graffiti central, a place where creativity constantly flourishes from humble tags to massive, building-sized pieces. Besides attending studies, He was active within what used to be a thriving squat movement. A programmer for events held at the Café-Expo Les Négociants until 1996, He then became a VJ & video performing artist and occasional curator, an occupation he still carries out today.
His work has accompanied DJs, live music and art events, been featured at prestigious Geneva festivals such as La Batie, or at the more avant-garde Mapping festival for which he worked as a scenographer in 2007.
Between 1999 and 2001, he was the art director and curator of an independent gallery on the Rue des Bains, Carré Rouge: a precursor of today's countless established art spaces in that area. Subsequently He supervised numerous exhibitions there, from the Contemporary Art Center to Art & Public gallerie among others. The City of Geneva hired him as an architect for its Nuit de la Science biennial (2006 & 2008).
Straddling the regional underground and institutional art scenes, the well-traveled and well-read Fabien Piccand is also a music enthusiast, creating and directing the popular NORMA nightclub in 2004. Formerly a hard core gamer, he has reconnected with thoughtful playfulness by launching the groundbreaking Zee series of vinyl designer toys in 2007.