Agenda

From today´s perspective, the Langmatt villa in Baden (Kanton Aargau) in the early 20th century was one of the most important concentrations of modern art in Switzerland.

The villa belonged to the industrialist Brown family. In 1891, Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown (1863-1924) and his brother Sidney William Brown (1865-1941) joined Walter Boveri (1865-1924) to found the firm Brown, Boveri & Cie (BBC).

Charles and Sidney were children of the English engineer Charles Brown (1827-1905) and the Swiss Eugenie Pfau (1845-1929). The firm flourished and soon became a multinational, known as ABB since 1988.

In 1896, Sidney married Jenny Sulzer (1871-1968). They gave rise to one of the world´s most significant private collections of impressionist and modernist art.

Around 1920, they also developed a marked interest in French art of the 18th and 19th century. They also accumulated a remarkable collection of Chinese ceramics and furniture, silver and porcelain from different epochs.

The city of Baden became the owner of the villa and its collections in 1987 and founded the Museum Langmatt in 1990.

The family’s interest was not limited to the arts. They also collected the multilingual canon of world literature, history, philosophy, literature, religion, politics, music and the fine arts.

An extensive correspondence with dealers testifies to the acquisition of magnificent volumes. Many historical photos show the family members busy with their passion and selected books reveal their inner selves.

The Showcase Archive (Schaufenster Archiv) presents for the the library and for the first time large parts of the archive. They were systematically indexed and partially digitised in 2017–18.

It contains, among other things, documents, letters, postcards, diaries and photographs from the Brown family estate.

The time frame of the documents spans the years 1850 to 1987, when John Alfred Brown died (born in 1900). He bequeathed the Villa and its rich collections to Baden.

The exhibition ((Du précieux au quotidien. Le verre plat dans l´architecture) is devoted to the fascinating history of the production and use of sheet glass from antiquity to the present day.

The exhibition will highlight the interactions between technological innovations and developments in the field of flat glass production, the construction industry and architecture, and will give an insight into the diversity of this once precious and now everyday material.

A special look is taken at the company Epredia/Erie-Electroverre in Romont, which in 1935 inaugurated the first electric furnace for the production of drawn glass. Documents, photographs and filmed testimonies trace the history of this company, which unfortunately closed its doors in 2021. This closure concludes the history of one of the last drawn glass production sites in the world.

In response to the pandemic of the coronavirus, Art as Connection takes the form of an experimental and open exhibition based on a collective development process.

The open form of this project takes into account the uncertainty of our times. A wide range of themes – including isolation, distrust, authority, globalisation, health, solidarity and community – are expressed in the artworks and in the discussions and events for and with the public.

Snowflakes transform the world. Like through a white filter, we perceive our surroundings with different eyes. The exhibition shows how snow changes our perception, emotions, and expectations, and explores how we as humans adapt to wintry conditions: How do we move through and across snow? How do we protect our bodies and houses? And what happens if the snow itself needs our protection and “white Christmases” become ever rarer?

The castle (Château de La Sarraz) in the canton of Vaud has a history of almost a thousand years. The first Donjon was built in 1049 by the Lord of Grandson. The area then belonged to the nearby Romainmôtier Abbey.

The castle is located in the valley of La Vénoge on the route from France to Italy near Mormont Hill (known for its Celtic (the tribe of the Helvetians) settlement and finds).

From the thirteenth century, the Counts and Dukes of Savoy controlled Vaud and also La Sarraz. From 1536 to 1798, Bern was the ruler of Vaud, and the castle, which from 1541 was inhabited by the Gingins family (until 1948).

The castle was destroyed several times (during the Burgundian Wars of 1474-1477 and the Bern Conquest of 1536) but rebuilt each time.

Until 1948, the castle was owned by four noble families from Vaud: Grandson, Montferrat, La Sarraz and Gingins.

They passed the castle and the estate from generation to generation through inheritance or marriage until the death of the last chatelaine Hélène de Mandrot (1867-1948) of the Gingins dynasty.

As a result, the chateau has retained its character of habitation and use. Seven collections make up the museum of the Château de la Sarraz.

The museum has some of the finest collections of furniture and paintings in Switzerland.

The exhibition (900 ans de dynasties) presents the eleventh-century dynasties until the last châtelaine in 1948.

The exhibition (Les géants du vignoble) shows extraordinary discoveries and presents itself as an excavation experience, a journey of 140 million years into the Cretaceous.

The visitor is immersed in the everyday life of the palaeontologist from field work to reconstruction of the skeletons and environment. In the process, one also learns about the scientific studies related to the fossils found.

The museum’s collections include around seventy engravings and etchings by the painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 1526/1530–1569).

The exhibition presents the complete collection of the museum, complemented by selected loans from the Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich.

His works encompass landscapes, allegorical and religious representations, and scenes from the everyday lives of the peasantry.

The artist is best known for his apocalyptic sceneries with demons .

The lively action on the surface of his works almost always contains a deeper truth. Drawing on his own varied experiences and with evident wit, Bruegel takes aim at human foibles and flaws.

Catherine Meurisse (1980) is one of today’s most famous female French comics artists. She is the author of several graphic novels and comics reportages, drew caricatures and illustrated children’s books.

Catherine Meurisse became the first cartoonist and caricaturist to be made a member of France’s Académie des Beaux-Arts.

The retrospective is the first in the German-speaking world to show original drawings from all works by this multi-award-winning artist.

She also publishes in newspapers and magazines. She became the first female cartoonist to work at Charlie Hebdo, narrowly escaping the 2015 attack.

She has released two graphic novels with autobiographical elements: La Légèreté (The Lightness) and Les Grands Espaces (The Great Outdoors).

In 2014, the comedy “Moderne Olympia” (Olympia in Love)was published, linking paintings and objects from the collection of Musée d’Orsay with a story from the world of painting, dance and early film. In 2019, Catherine Meurisse managed to represent Alexandre Dumas’s memories of Eugène Delacroix in her publication Delacroix.

As the result of two stays in Kyoto, she produced “La jeune femme et la mer” (The Young Woman and the Sea), in which she addresses her perception of the Japanese landscape, nature and way of life.

Raphael Ritz (1829-1894) was long considered an artist who mainly focused on the past and his canton (Valais), in contrast to his famous namesake, the hotelier César Ritz (1850-1918).

Raphael Ritz’s career between Valais and Düsseldorf, his writings and his work, however, bear witness to a cosmopolitan artist.

The exhibition (Raphael Ritz. Aujourd´hui/Heute) sheds new light on the work of this artist. Moreover, the exhibition is complemented by a selection of contemporary photographs by some ten photographers, including Laurence Bonvin, Nicolas Faure, Yann Gross and Corinne Vionnet.

The accompanying sound exhibition Raphaëlle / Raffaela by Sabine Zaalene (1969) is a female echo of the work of Raphael Ritz.

Since ancient times, people have stored ice in ice chests, basements or other storage facilities.

In the 20th century, new were machines were invented, such as the refrigerator.

The exhibition (partly taken from the Cité des Sciences in Paris) shows the many facets of cold, both natural and manufactured.

A second section looks at the strategies that living things, plants, animals and humans, use to protect themselves from extreme temperatures, both cold and heat.