The point of departure for this exhibition by David Casini, a Tuscan artist who lives in Geneva, was an untitled pair of portraits from 2003—one of John Calvin, the other of Guillaume Farel. Images of these two religious reformers stood out against a wall directly across from the gallery entrance. The subtle black line defining the faces of these sixteenth-century thinkers recalls prints from that era, and the carved frames that surround the two portraits are consonant with the style of the works.

Casini made a bold choice in opening the show with two historical images, light years away from our

For a contemporary artist, working with natural materials can represent an approach to our mythic mother, the earth, but also an investigation of structural laws, the search for an order underlying the apparent disorder of nature. To put Christiane Löhr’s work in perspective we need to bring these two aspects into agreement. This German artist works with horsehair, dog fur, plant stems, thistle or ivy seeds, and grasses and, through elemental operations like knotting, braiding, overlapping, and juxtaposition, constructs (on this occasion, small) sculptures that can be arranged on a horizontal