The Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève is pleased to present at L’Arcade the exhibition Enfantillages et bizarreries : vertige d’une collection, a fascinating collection of small objects—trinkets, charms, gadgets, toys, lucky charms, or simple pieces of wood, scraps of cloth, and shards of glass—saved from the banality of the world by the hand of artists who made them into works of art.

Presented to the public for the first time, this marvelous jumble of miniatures is the result of the passion and obsessions of Italian collector Giuseppe Garrera: a dogged quest of collecting, a delirious, inward-facing quest.

Perfume bottles by Sol LeWitt, fans by Gilbert & George, pencils by Jenny Holzer, coat racks by Jonathan Monk, cycling jerseys by Mario Schifano, stamps by Yoko Ono, matchboxes by Salvo, marbles by Takako Saitō, and pins by Damien Hirst—the collection constantly oscillates between toy, everyday artifact, and work of art, a constellation of objects that are at once familiar and strangely singular.

Between desire, possession, and the attempt to fill absences, losses, and voids, the exhibition explores the thaumaturgical virtues of objects and childhood as a place of refuge and wonder.