The enchanting world of Alpine arts festival Elevation 1049; an overview

Ryoji Ikeda, Cecilia Bengolea, Douglas Gordon and Michaël Borremans bring the hills to life.

Nestled in the near-mythical mountain town of Gstaad in the heart of the Swiss Alps, Elevation 1049 reverberates to the sound of French grime, data patterns and howling wolves.

For six weeks, a selection of the world’s most exciting visual artists exhibited site-specific installations in the town and surrounding hills.

Among them were Ryoji Ikeda, whose pulse-pounding test pattern installation launched new release Code Name: A to Z with The Vinyl Factory and Cecilia Bengolea, who returned from learning Thai boxing to create an immersive grime-soundtracked dance piece projected onto the frozen hillside.

Inspired by myths, wolves and smoke signals, Douglas Gordon and Morgane Tschiember ignited a ring of fire only accessible by gondola, while Michaël Borremans premiered his new band TC Boring in the former chalet of Swiss playboy Gunter Sachs.

Touched by the sublime and the surreal, watch the complete overview of works by all eleven artists at the festival above and find out more about the featured artists involved here.