Agenda

The Swiss Museum for Paper, Writing and Printing (die Basler Papiermühle. Museum für Papier, Schrift und Druck) presents a travelling exhibition of 72 artists from 36 countries featuring leporello and artist’s books made during the 2020/2021 pandemic shutdown.

The leporello is a printed work made of a long, folded strip of paper, distinguishable from a letter, flyer, brochure or leaflet.

Each work is the result of an exchange of experiences between two artists from different countries around the world who entered into a dialogue with their works and each other by post (i.e. not by app, e-mail or computer).

The exhibition shows the personal dimension, creativity and added value of ‘old-fashioned’ mail and exchange of feelings, messages and impressions. It still exists.

The works, with very different design concepts, techniques and content, are on show in Europe for the first time, following exhibitions in São Paulo, Buenos Aires and Quito. The museum exhibits them throughout the splendid permanent exhibition.

In September 2021, Chantal Convertini (*1992) rented a house in Corsica and invited eight other colleagues whom, until then, she had known only on Instagram to join her for a project.

The group bonded not only on the photographic level but also as human beings. Hundreds of photographs were taken in the space of a few days: self-portraits, nudes, group pictures, details and landscapes. Much emerged out of the moment and the mood; and the photos also show the mutual trust growing with each passing day.

Photo’s : Felicitas Schwenzer, Charlotte Grimm

The exhibition’s title of Corse  is a reference to the place where those  photographic moments originated and to the natural way in which the photographs came about.

Initially, there were no plans to show these sometimes very intimate photos in an exhibition. The exhibtion showcases works from: Chantal Convertini, Lena Aires, Charlotte Grimm, Dafni Planta, Monika Jia Rui Scherer, Felicitas Schwenzer, Mayara Scudeler, Catia Simões and Shannon Tomasik.

Photo’s: Lena Aires, Dafni Planta

Replica of the living room in Corsica

Photo’s: Lena Aires

Free entry and cataloque for free!

With a cross-border exhibition, the Museum zu Allerheiligen Schaffhausen and the Kunstmuseum Singen are jointly addressing the current state of painting in southern Germany and German-speaking Switzerland.

The title of the exhibition is “Ohne Titel” (Without Title). This designation is often used by artists as a working title to avoid steering the viewer’s perception in one direction in advance. However, the works in the exhibition have a title.

Lin Olschowsa (1995), Scheinlingszwack, 2022; Marianna Tilly (1995), ‘Men Crying: Disco Locker Room, 2021, und ‘Hitting In The Material World 1/3’, 2022.

The exhibition is about the breadth and versatility of painting. An ideal opportunity to learn more about contemporary painting in this region. Crossing the border between the two institutions and countries is also a goal of this project.

Culture is (almost) always transnational. The Kunstmuseum Singen is dedicated to modern and contemporary art. The art department of the Museum zu Allerheiligen in Schaffhausen not only shows (religious) art from the Middle Ages to 1945 and modern and contemporary art.

Sophia Sadzakov (*1992)

The recently renovated museum also houses three other departments: Archaeology, (cultural) history and natural history. Southern Germany and German-speaking Switzerland have always been one cultural and linguistic region. However, national borders have also influenced this region since Napoleon. Cities like Laufenburg, Kaiserstuhl and Rheinfelden were separated, new borders were established.

However, cultural centres have always been connected in this region of the High Rhine and Lake Constance since Roman and medieval times.

The bishopric of Constance, the former monastery Allerheiligen in Schaffhausen and, for example, the monastery of St. Georgen in Stein am Rhein (canton of Schaffhausen) bear witness.

Emperor Heinrich II (973-1024) moved this monastery, founded around 970 in Singen, to Stein am Rhein in the 11th century! Today’s collaboration with the ‘Untitled’ exhibition is a ‘back to the roots’ initiative.

Museums are platforms for emerging artists. The exhibition is also a platform to reveal the potential of young painting in the region.

Equally fundamental are the questions with which the exhibition approaches painting. Central starting points are the representation of painting trends, the current strength of painting, new influences and old and new art historical movements.

Until 16 April, the selection of works by 57 artists shows the new painting in this region: lively, original sensual, full of pleasure and energy.

Dana Greiner (*1988)

Robert Matthes (*1982)

Theo Huber (*1987)

To mark the 15oth anniversary of the School of Applied Arts (l’École d’arts appliqués) in La Chaux-de-Fonds (canton Neuchâtel), and to coincide with the UN’s «International Year of Glass», the exhibition Brillance of Glass. The Mastery of Enamel shows the traditional techniques of enamelling applied to the decoration of watches.

The exhibition highlights the art of enamelling  and covers the challenges and the many contrasts, for example the artisan enamellers creating masterpieces and those who commissioned them, the simplicity of the material and the great complexity of its mastery, the current appeal of enamelled watches and the difficult training of the artisans.

Featuring more than 150 objects and documents from a diverse range of reference collections, the exhibition represents a unique opportunity to explore – as a single collection – multiple pieces only very rarely displayed in public.

The Roman town Aventicum, Avenches in the present-day canton of Vaud, is well known for its arena, theatre, temple (or Cigogne), Roman city wall and the Roman museum in the medieval tower.

The Romans founded the Colonia Aventicum after 15-13 BC, but before the arrival of the Romans, there existed a large Celtic settlement. Excavations have provided increasing insight into this society. This exhibition offers an overview of the latest finds and science.

The Celtic tribes

From the 5th century BC, much of Europe, including present-day Switzerland, was inhabited by Celtic tribes, also called Gauls by the Greeks. At the beginning of the 1st century BC, the Celtic tribe of Helvetians inhabited most of the Swiss Plateau, the area from the Jura to the Alps.

Written sources

The written sources are exclusively from Greek and Roman authors and, therefore, by no means objective. They tell about the relations between the Celts and the Mediterranean world from their perspective. The most famous text was written by Julius Caesar in his de Bello Gallico, about the Gallic War (58-52 BC)

The failed exodus of Celtic tribes, including the Helvetian and Rauracen tribes, in 58 BC, led to the Gallic War. Caesar defeated these tribes at Bribracte that year and won the Gallic War in 52 BC.

Archaeology

While Roman stone monuments, cities and roads are often spectacular and at least partly preserved, the wooden remains of the Celts – and the Helvetians – are challenging to identify and interpret. Yet archaeology has succeeded in (re)writing the history of these tribes, depicting their organisation and religion and understanding their culture, crafts and trade relations.

The Celts 

Archaeological excavations show that there was already a Helvetian settlement and organised hierarchical society at the foot of the hill in Avenches in the 2nd century BC. It was a residential area, with an elite of warriors, coins, specialised and advanced crafts, religion and burials. After 15 BC, the Roman city of Aventicum  emerged.

The exhibition

The exhibition shows the commercial, craft, domestic and religious activities, elite, social relations and warfare of these Helvetians until the arrival of the Romans.

The Comites Latentes include 212 manuscripts from the 6th to the 20th centuries. In the 1960s, Sion Segre Amar (1910-2003) started collecting manuscripts. He called his collection Comites Latentes, meaning hidden (travel) companions because he always carried some copies with him.

Since 1977, the collection has been at the Bibliothèque de Genève, where it is scientifically researched. The collection includes prayer books and religious, literary, administrative and legal texts. Most date from the Middle Ages, including 98 religious manuscripts, 47 profane literature and 67 fragments with illuminations.

Many manuscripts come from Italy or France and are written in Latin, but there are Hebrew and Greek texts and small plates with cuneiform script. After he died in 2003, his children inherited the collection and founded the Comites Latentes Società Semplice in 2018.

This organisation aims to research the collection and make it accessible to the public. The intention is to digitise the collection and make it available on the internet. The first manuscripts of the Comites Latentes have already been digitised on the initiative of the Bibliothèque de Genève and published on the e-codices portal.

The historical Museum Basel and the University Library have received this collection on loan for 15 years. In cooperation with Geneva, the research is continuing.

The Historical Museum Basel displays several works from this unique collection until 5 March 2023, among others a Hebrew prayer book in silver binding, a parchment scroll with the Bible story of the Jewish woman Esther and French-language saints’ vitae and an excerpt from the so-called Burckhardt-Wildt Apocalypse: a manuscript named after its later owner Daniel Burckhardt-Wildt (1752-1819).

Aristide Maillol (1861–1944) is the most important French sculptor of the early modern era after Auguste Rodin. A major and influential figure who is both modern and timeless, Maillol created sensual art that embodies the values of clarity and balance of forms, making him a consummate artist of the classical tradition.

The exhibition brings together over 140 works, with both sculptures – including all the artist’s key works – and paintings: Maillol began his career as a painter, producing canvases of great quality that are still little known outside France. Also on display are decorative objects, tapestries designed by Maillol, and enchanting drawings.

The presentation additionally incorporates paintings by contemporaries such as Paul Gauguin, Maurice Denis and Édouard Vuillard, revealing the closeness of Maillol’s relationship to them.

The exhibition “Ave Caesar! Romans, Gauls and Germanic tribes on the banks of the Rhine” (Ave Caesar! Römer, Gallier und Germanen am Rhein) highlights the relationships between the advanced civilisations of the Mediterranean region and the indigenous Gaulish and Germanic tribes on both sides of the River Rhine.

The river is the central theme around which the various fascinating aspects of these contacts have been staged. The exhibition is divided into five parts: The seat of a Celtic ruler, dealing with the Celtic ruling class and their magnificent estates around 500 BC.

The section on the “Celtic settlement” illustrates how the Celts around Basel abandoned their unfortified settlement on the Rhine and constructed a new fortification on the ‘Münsterhügel’.

The “Roman legionary camp”, the third part, shows how the legionaries lived in the region and how their campaigns against the Germanic tribes on the right bank of the Rhine progressed.

The “Roman country estate” is the fourth part and is devoted to the way in which food supplies for the growing population were maintained and shows which Mediterranean foods were newly grown in the Rhine region at that time.

The final part of the exhibition is entitled “Roman colony” and illustrates how Roman culture became established in the conquered territories.

The exhibition is part of the project “Der Rhein/le Rhin. 3 Länder-38 Ausstellungen/ 3 Pays – 38 expositions“.

Rarely will the preparation of an exhibition be so overtaken by the events as ‘Kunst und Krieg’ at the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, on show from 8 October to 12 January 2023. Since 24 February, however, the current title has replaced the original title, ‘Wargames’.

It was intended to represent artists’ depictions of war and human suffering from the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Wargames were the apotheosis or (anti) climax of digital warfare in the 21st century. Four videos of simulations for US soldiers in Iraq, the Wargames, still conclude the exhibition. However, the current context has changed.

Harun Farocki, Ernste Spiele I-IV, 2010. Collection Harun Farocki GbR

The quality of the works, however, remained the same. Unique series by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), die Apokalypse, Jacques Callot (1592-1635), Les Misères de la Guerre, Hans Ulrich Franck (1590-1675), Schrecken des Dreissigjährigen Krieges, the Vari Capricci by  the Baroque painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (1696-1770), best known for his painted vaults in churches, and Francisco Goya (1746-1828), Desastres de la Guerra, are on display.

They depicted the true nature of war in their original and unsparing ways. These artists did not put rulers and war heroes at the centre of large oil paintings but created small graphic works at their own risk and without a commission. They could easily be multiplied and distributed. Dürer was the first to use the newly invented printing press.

Albrecht Dürer. Die apokalyptische Reiter. 1511. Collection Kunstmuseum St. Gallen

Félix Vallotton (1865-1925), Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945), Eduard Rüdisühli (1875-1938), Otto Dix (1891-1969), Frans Masereel (1889-1972), Walter Kurt Wiemken (1907-1941), Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) Gerhard Richter (1932) and finally Harun Farocki (1944-2014)and his series ‘Ernste Spiele’, four simulation videos for US soldiers, trace the line from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century.

Jacques Callot, L’estrapade, nr. 11. 1633. Collection Kunst Museum Winterthur/Stiftung Oskar Reinhart

A big surprise is the work of Frans Masereel (Juin 1940-1942). This Belgian artist fled from Paris to southern France in June 1940. Like a ‘Bayeux Tapestry’, he drew a small panorama, a Makimonos, of the war events on six metres of paper. The work was not in public view for 40 years.

Francisco Goya, Tampoco, 1810-1814, blad 34. Collection Kunst Museum Winterthur/Stiftung Oskar Reinhart

Giacometti’s 1947 La main is based on his personal experience. While fleeing from Paris in June 1940, he saw a severed arm lying in the street after a German attack. With it, he depicts not only the suffering of the war but also his artistic development of life-sized figures.

The impressive show also has a sequel, depicting ruler figures in miniatures of the early Baroque. This period was highly violent (including the Thirty and Eighty Years Wars), and rulers waged war as if on a ‘chessboard’. Rulers needed to legitimise their power, and miniatures were an effective means of self-representation.

Friedrich V., Count and King of Bohemia (1596-1632), 1621. Collection Emil S. Kern

Beautiful miniatures from France, the Netherlands and England are on display.
Chess has been a favourite and prestigious leisure activity of monarchs, generals and other (military) leaders since 1000. The Lewis Chessmen are Europe’s first found (Isle of Lewis, northern Scotland) ivory chess pieces, probably made in Trondheim in Norway.

De Lewis Chessmen (and woman), 11 the century.  Collection British National Museum, London.  Copies. Photo: TES

These Vikings inhabited Scotland and Ireland and had learned about chess in Byzantium through the city and kingdom of Kyiv centuries before the creation of the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its Tsars.

The circle is round, and the title ‘Checkmate-Spiel der Könige. Herrscherminiaturen des Frühbarock’ touches on current events.

One of Switzerland’s most important private collections of Baroque silver is presented to the public in the exhibition Elegant Imbibing. Baroque Silver from a Basel Collection (Schöner Trinken. Barockes Silber aus einer Basler Sammlung).

A fascinating insight into the sheer variety of drinking vessels, their manufacture and use, it reveals that for all the differences, there are also parallels between imbibing today and imbibing 300 years ago.

Sailing ships filled with wine that «sail» across the table, Sturzbecher fitted with windmills and blowpipes, «miracle» wine cups and lidded jugs for up to 2.5 litres of warm beer – they are all vivid and entertaining testimonials to past drinking customs.

These artfully designed silver vessels also tell of the functions for which they were made and their role as prestige objects. Another highlight is the silversmith’s workbench that helps to explain how these beautifully hand-crafted objects were made.