Agenda

According to common belief, Islam has an absolute ban on images and is hostile to pictorial representations, quite in contrast to Christianity. But is this actually true? Are images categorically forbidden in Islam? And what about Christianity: doesn’t the Second Commandment state “thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image”?

The exhibition In the name of the Image. Imagery and between Cult and Prohibition in Islam and Christianity (Im Namen des Bildes. Das Bild zwischen Kult und Verbot in Islam und Christentum) deals with such questions on a comparative, cross-cultural basis. It traces the strategies Islam and Christianity applied over the centuries to deal with aniconism.

The focus is on the Middle Ages, that is, the period from the 6th to the 16th century. During this time, the question of images was debated extensively by theologians. The 136 works on display cover a geographic area that stretches from Latin Western Europe (Kingdom of France and Holy Roman Empire) to the eastern Mediterranean (Byzantine Empire and later Ottoman Empire) to Western Asia (Persia) and as far as South Asia (Mughal Empire in India).

Complementary to the exhibition, the museum is organizing a series of lectures to address certain aspects in more depth, and in which we get to hear what world-renowned experts have to say on the subject.

With a major retrospective on Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986), the Fondation is dedicating the exhibition to one of the most significant artists of the 20th century and an outstanding figure in modern American art.

From O’Keeffe’s earliest abstractions to her iconic depictions of flowers and landscapes of the American Southwest, the retrospective will offer an in-depth survey of the artist’s work including rarely seen paintings from public and private collections.

The exhibition examines her particular way of looking at her surroundings and translating them into new and hitherto unseen images of reality.

The exhibition aims to focus the attention on the topicality of O’Keeffe’s bold and radical way of looking. Spanning more than six decades, it is the first major retrospective in Basel and the first comprehensive overview of her oeuvre in Switzerland for almost 20 years.

In the newly designed Sculpture Hall, the museum presents its new collection of Greek sculptures from the Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic periods and Roman marble copies of famous Greek works, which give an overview of the development of ancient Greek development sculpture.

One focus is the idealised body of the 5th and 4th centuries BC, made according to rules of proportion and beauty.

Gods and goddesses, athletic heroes and maenads are depicted alongside poets and philosophers, rulers and other historical figures, whose funerary reliefs testify to their social position at the time.

The figures and reliefs are made of precious materials such as marble or bronze. Today, these cultural testimonies still delight us with their timeless aesthetics and brilliant sculptural achievements.

Henry Brandt (1921-1998) was a self-taught exponent of the cinematic and photographic arts. Together with Alain Tanner and Claude Goretta in particular, he was one of the co-founders of the Swiss Filmmakers Association (ARF/FDS) in 1962.

He produced a large number of films during an active professional career that spanned some 35 years. His documentaries for the Swiss National Exposition in Lausanne in 1964 made a lasting impression on an entire generation of visitors and filmmakers.

Various events in other cities underline the quality of his work and his ability to grasp the major issues of the society of his time: education, ageing, pollution, nature, the consumer society, the Cold War and arms race and the contrast between poor and rich countries. Themes that are still relevant today.

(Further information: www.henrybrandt.ch).

The retrospective of Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) offers a new perspective on the work of this pioneer of “Art Brut”.

Although he paradoxically rejected the established art culture, movements and techniques, his work occupies an essential place in the artistic landscape of the second half of the 20th century.

The diversity of this exhibition testifies to his inexhaustible creativity. With more than ten thousand works included in the catalogue raisonné, Jean Dubuffet’s polymorphic work covers six decades of the 20th century.

The exhibition shows his most famous paintings and works on paper (drawings and gouaches).

Lill Tschudi (1911–2004), born in Glarus (Switzerland), left for London in 1929 to study at The Grosvenor School of Modern Art. In the 1930s and 1940s, she achieved widespread recognition throughout the English-speaking world. The Metropolitan Museum in New York holds a substantial collection of 118 prints. In her Swiss homeland, however, she has been all but forgotten. The exhibition presents her most iconic works.

She covered a wide range of subjects with a flash of unparalleled technical brilliance, from sport, jazz and vibrant city life to contemplative scenes of rural Switzerland and even impressions of the Women’s Auxiliary Service (FHD) during the war. She also studied in Paris Advertising and Commercials and was inspired by Fernand Léger (1881–1955). This influence also characterizes her later works as an illustrator of magazines.

Chickens are among the most widespread domesticated animals in the world. There are more than twice as many of them as there are humans. Nevertheless, the knowledge about these animals is limited, due to the fact that chickens are mainly considered as consumer goods, without any biological or evolutionary identity. They can’t even sing like other birds.

The exhibition Chicken – Erbe der Dinosaurier (Chicken – legacy of the dinosaurs) illustrates the complex biology and evolutionary history of chickens. Chickens are more than just food: they are interesting and diverse animals. They are the result of an evolutionary process that began with dinosaurs and culminated in a variety of human-influenced forms through the process of domestication.

For centuries, Switzerland has been a country of emigration. Many people fled poverty; some were seeking adventure or business opportunities, still others were coerced into leaving their home or worked as missionaires or NGO’s.

Around 11% of Swiss citizens (around 800 000)  live abroad today. This group is also referred to as ‘the fifth Switzerland’. They become a much more visible community especially in the lead-up to voting in any referenda. Most of them live in Europe.

The Auslandschweizer-Organisation (ASO)/ Organisation des Suisses de l’étranger (OSE) represents their interests vis-à-vis the Swiss authorities and parliament (see also: www.swisscommunity.org).

The exhibition (Leaving Switserland. Emigration stories after 1848) explores the day-to-day realities of emigrant life, the success stories of the few, and the ordinary life of the many. The Guggenheims, for example, emigrated to the USA in the 19th century and became one of the richest families in the country or the brothers Samuel and Johann Berger, who emigrated to Russia in 1874 and became successful cheesemakers. The history of the hoteliers, pastrycooks and confectioners from Graubünden is relatively well known.

The exhibition gives a good insight into the motives and facts of the emigration from 1848 onwards.

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609-1664), also known as ‘Il Grechetto’,  was an Italian draughtsman and pioneering experimenter in graphic art and printmaking.

This innovative master, whose graphic works bear the influence of Rembrandt van Rhijn (1606-1669), invented the monotype technique in the 17th century. His painterly brush drawings in oils were an important source of inspiration for other artists.

He embodies everything that makes the Baroque so fascinating: its celebration of the artistic brilliance, opulent magnificence and a striving to enrapture the viewer’s senses.

The exhibition of some 80 works is the first monographic presentation of Castiglione’s graphic oeuvre in a German-speaking country.

Concrete is everywhere. Today, concrete is the most widely used building material on earth. Yet increasing awareness of its significant ecological impact has made clear that the status quo of building in concrete is no longer tenable.

The exhibition (“Beton”)presents nine ways of understanding concrete, bringing together, among others, original drawings, models, and photographs from the three main architecture archives in Switzerland in order to illuminate this complex and critical material.

The historical scope of the exhibition is complemented by the public events program, which focuses on the use of this material today and opens the discussion on its possible futures.