Agenda

Joan Miró (1893-1983) is known for his colourful surrealist dream worlds. The Catalan artist extended his concept of painting in a hitherto unfamiliar direction after 1956. however. This new beginning forms the starting point for the exhibition (Joan Miró: Neue Horizonte).

The artist saw conventional easel painting as a limitation and tried to find new expressive forms. He ‘painted’, for example, with fire and scissors rather than a brush and expanded his technique to textiles or overpainted classical paintings. In this way he produced large-format raw paintings and sculptures that remain resolutely contemporary.

The exhibition includes 74 works, mostly from the late 1960s, the 1970s and the early 1980s. Most come from the holdings of the Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona as well as the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró in Mallorca.

The artist Paul Klee (1879-1940) and Joan Miró highly appreciated each others works and artistic concepts. The encounter with Paul Klee’s work made a lasting impression on Joan Miró and vice versa. Thanks to the study of the Klee´s work Miró also succeeded in finding a balance between figurative Surrealism and abstraction.

The exhibition was realised in close collaboration with the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona.

The Fondation de l’Hermitage hosta a major retrospective of Léon Spilliaert (1881- 946), one of the most important representatives of Belgian art in the early 20^th century.

He created his profoundly original work almost entirely on paper, combining different graphic techniques in images imbued with metaphysical questioning and Flemish culture.

His art can be linked to the Symbolism and Expressionism of his time, while the extreme simplification of his most radical landscapes seems to herald geometrical abstraction and minimalism.

Before the First World War (1914-1918) Spilliaert primarily used Indian ink wash, watercolour, pastel and coloured crayons to create pared down landscapes bordering on abstraction – sky, sea and the line of the seawall vibrating in dull light. The few figures who appear on these melancholic shores are usually women.

Spilliaert’s depiction of human beings culminated in striking self-portraits. After 1920 Spilliaert made great use of watercolour and gouache, creating flamboyant, highly lyrical seascapes sometimes verging on the abstract. In the 1930s and 40s he returned to nature trees. His fascinating and timeless images radiate a sense of peace combined with a sense of the uncanny.

The exhibition (Vom Wert der Kunst in German) intends to find out more about the complex relationship between art and value using works from the collection of the Art Museum Graubünden,

The works correlate with topics about which the visitors can approach the value mystery. What does a work of art that consists of food, which slowly decomposes, tell us about the meaning of material consistency? What insights does the mystification about the role of authorship give us? What does irony tell us about artistic appropriation? What knowledge do we gain about the limitations of the art context?

Today, It is increasingly taken for granted that artists and experts should not have the only final say. The public also wants to be included in these processes. The exhibition seeks to stimulate discussion and allows personal interpretations.

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.