Agenda

The Austrian artist Oskar Kokoschka (1884-1980) lived on or near Lake Geneva for much of his long life, from 1953 until his death he resided in Villeneuve. The Oskar Kokoschka Foundation manages his legacy and owns more than 2,300 works of art, paintings, watercolours, drawings and almost all lithographic works. Besides, the foundation has a significant collection of objects and archives. A new permanent exhibition in two rooms of the museum Jenisch presents works by this artist and his artistic development. There is also a space for temporary exhibitions about his art and his life.

Amuse-bouche. The Taste of Art is the third art experiment at the museum, entering the world of the human senses. These play an essential role in the experience of art. This show focuses on the sense of taste and poses the question: Does art taste sweet, sour, bitter, salty, or even umami? What role does our sense of taste play as an artistic material and in our social interactions? The exhibition presents works by some forty-five international artists from the baroque to the present that explore the sense of taste as a dimension of aesthetic perception. In traditional accounts of the senses, the taste is predicated on direct physical contact. The exhibition poses various questions concerning the many fields of taste-related experience. Some of the works on display can even be tasted during special guided tours and performances. 

The exhibition (Aux Sources du Moyen Âge) presents the (cultural) richness and (ethnic) diversity of the period from Late Antiquity to the year 1000 in present-day French-speaking Switzerland or la Romandie. It covers the cantons of Valais, Vaud and Geneva, as well as parts of the cantons of Fribourg, Neuchâtel and Jura. The six centuries after Roman times are the eras of the Burgundians, the Alamans and the Franks and their (forgotten) kingdoms. However, this time has been decisive for the (linguistic, cantonal and cultural) development of present-day Switzerland. Migrations, the development of writing and (French) language, leisure, burial customs, art, culture, monastic life and political developments bring this period to the fore. In any case, this time was not as ‘dark’ as is often thought.

The exhibition examines the history and themes of the Im Obersteg collection of the museum in its broader context. The show inquires into the reception of Marc Chagall’s early oeuvre in Basel, the discovery of Chaïm Soutine in Paris, Alexej von Jawlensky’s difficult final years during the Second World War and the acquisition and sale of works by Picasso. Karl Im Obersteg (1883-1969) was a private collector of art, diplomat and entrepreneur. Selected loans will accentuate the key themes of the collection. Picasso’s monumental painting Arlequin assis (1923), for example, which was the Im Obersteg Collection’s pièce de résistance for many years, but was sold by the heir of the owner to pay the inheritance tax in 1969. This work is shown alongside its twin, the Basler Arlequin assis by Picasso (1923). It is for the first times in fifty years that the Arlequin is back in Basel.

The newspapers experienced good times from the beginning of the nineteenth century. Weeklies and other magazines then went through a golden age in the 20th century. The rise of radio and television was a challenge for these media. Nowadays, the Internet is a serious competitor. Political cartoons have always been an integral part of this press. The caricature has played a prominent and essential role from the beginning of the printed media and has always been a popular political instrument. However, the cartoon is also under pressure, and the Swiss caricaturist Patrick Chappatte (1967) expresses his concerns publicly. The exhibition addresses this discussion and places Chappatte’s works in the spotlight.
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The poet Paul Éluard (1895–1952), the publisher Gérald Cramer (1916–1991) and the artist Joan Miró (1893–1983) produced one of the most exceptional artist’s books of the 20th century in 1958. Éluard wrote the poems between 1929 and 1930. Éditions surréalistes published these texts in 1930, but it was only in 1947, that the project of publishing the poems as an artist’s book with illustrations by Joan Miró was born.

Miró came up with the idea of making the publication a polychrome sculpture as much as a book. He made 233 woodcuts, which were carved and printed in colour. With the poems, they form a series of landscapes of words and images. The book was published in 1958 in an edition of just 130 copies and shown for the first time at Galerie Berggruen in Paris. Cooperating with the Fundació Joan Miró, the Fondation will tell the story of this splendid publication through correspondence, photographs, woodcuts, and the six conserved mock-ups. Four copies of the original edition on display allow a view all of the pages.

A thousand years after China, the first porcelain object was made in Meissen (Germany) at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Chinese porcelain immediately became a prestige object for the rulers and the aristocracy. The German prince of Saxony and King of Poland August the Strong (1670-1733), the alchemist Johann Friedrich Böttger (1682-1719), the decorator Johann Gregorius Höroldt (1696-1775) and the model builder Johann Joachim Kändler (1706-1775) were the protagonists in the immediate success of the Meissen factory. The eight Swiss private and museum collections in the exhibition show the history and development of Meissner porcelain from the very beginning.

The museum’s permanent exhibition presents the rich history of the watchmaking industry in Val-de-Travers, a Jura valley in the canton of Neuchâtel. The many exhibits bear witness to rural life before 1730. From 1730 onwards, the inhabitants gradually abandoned their agricultural activities to focus on the watch industry. This industrial vocation would last for three centuries. The export, journeys and businesses of watchmakers to and in America, France, England and China as well as the mechanisation of the watch industry in the valley are also discussed in detail.

Felix Maria Diogg (1762-1834) was the most important portraitist of the classicist period in Switzerland. The artist portrayed the bourgeois elite of a country undergoing radical change. The exhibition examines the artist’s biography and highlights his work based on portraits from the collection of the City Museum and several loans.

The exhibition shows diseases and their healing in prehistoric times. Today’s medicines and treatment methods were unknown, but people managed to cope. Thanks to close observation, they knew the healing properties of plants and passed on their knowledge from generation to generation. They were even able to perform operations successfully. Using selected archaeological objects from Central Switzerland, folk wisdom and ancient written sources, the exhibition (Gesundheit.  7000 Jahre Heilkunst) shows diseases and their remedies. The use of medicinal plants from the Neolithic to modern times is also highlighted. The exhibition is bilingual (German and English).