Agenda

Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) and Louis de Funès (1914-1983) connected deeply with their bodies, expressions and rhythm. Their gait and legendary dance acts expressed emotions then, and they still do.

The exhibition ‘Mouvement and Speech’ (le geste et la parole), a resounding success in Saint-Raphaël (France), offers a unique exploration of the diversity of their talents. It shows their similarities and differences, providing a fresh perspective on their distinct yet overlapping periods. World War II, for instance, was something they both highlighted in their way.

The exhibition in the Manoir at Chaplin’s World features more than 300 photographs, archival objects and film clips.

The interactive exhibition allows a close and in-depth experience of the films of these unique performers and their legendary acts and dances, including the Hasidic dance from The Adventures of Rabbi Jacob and Charlie Chaplin’s iconic mime dance from Modern Times.

The Kunstmuseum Bern (Museum of Art Bern) owns an interesting art collection from the late Middle Ages to the present. The collection’s current presentation shows around 180 European and American artworks from the 18th to the 20th centuries.

Cubism, Expressionism, Surrealism, and abstract art represent the central avant-garde trends of modern art. Highlights include Pablo Picasso’s Violin Hanging on a Wall, Meret Oppenheim ‘s Unter der Regen-Wolke and Piet Mondrian’s Painting No. II. The presentation is complemented by a selection of works by the Bern artist Adolf Wölfli from the holdings of the Adolf Wölfli Foundation.

The collection combines paintings by famous representatives of Abstract Expressionism – for example, Jackson Pollock’s Brown and Silver II and Lee Krasner’s Forest no 2 – with works by concrete and abstract artists such as Sophie Taeuber-Arp or Max Bill.

In the first half of the 20th century, three great German-speaking artists and writers settled in one of Switzerland’s wine-growing regions: Friedrich Dürrenmatt in Neuchâtel, Hermann Hesse in Tessin and Rainer Maria Rilke in Valais.

Vines and wine, emblematic features of the landscape they chose to live in, played a decisive role in their lives and art.

How does wine figure in the work of Rilke, Hesse and Dürrenmatt? How were these three great figures of 20th-century art and literature, who lived and wrote amid Swiss vineyards, inspired by these characteristic landscapes?

Through numerous quotations, photographs, drawings and personal objects, the exhibition shows the wide variety of their perceptions and sensibilities.

This bilingual travelling exhibition is an initiative of the Centre Dürrenmatt Neuchâtel ( CDN), which collaborates with the Museo Hermann Hesse in Montagnola (canton of Tessin) and the Fondation Rilke in Sierre (canton of Valais).