Author: Maarten Koning

74th Biennial Exhibition

The 74th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Art (La 74e Biennale d’art contemporain) of the Society of Friends of the Museum of Fine Arts (la Société des amis du Musée des beaux-arts, SaMbA) will take place at the Museum of Fine Arts (Musée des beaux-arts) in La Chaux-de-Fonds from 16 May to 29 August 2021.

Organised for more than 150 years by the Society of Friends of the Museum, the Biennial offers a unique panorama of Neuchâtel’s artistic creation. Artists with a link to the canton can present their work, both a promising first work, or the latest developments in a long-term project.

With works by:

Claude Augsburger, Jérôme Baratelli, Barbezat – Villetard, Linus Bill et Adrien Horni, Benoît Billotte, Fabian Boschung, Elizaveta Calais Matevosyan, Johanna Castellanos, Francisco Da Mata, Simon de Diesbach, Dominique Delefortrie, Noémie Doge, Daniela Droz, Pierre Dürrenberger, Anne Emery, Rosalie Evard, Hubert Girardin Noirat, Stéphanie Gygax, Hyperartistes, Martin Jakob, Benoît Jeannet, Dominique-Anne Junod, Catherine Louis, Philip Maire, Miguel Menezes, Chloë Naucelle, Anne Pantillon, Arnaud Parel, Guillaume Perret, Manuel Perrin, Mathias Pfund, Mathieu Pilloud, Colin Raynal, Marie Reber, Olivier Robert, Alain Rufener, Daniel Ruggiero, Bastien Schmid, Nathan Solioz.

(Source and further information: www.samba-cdf.ch)

The Alabama, Putin, Biden and Geneva

Joe Biden (1942), President of the United States, and Vladimir Putin (1952), President of Russia, will meet in Geneva on 16 June 2021. The venue for the meeting is La Grange Park. The city has a long reputation for dispute resolution and meetings between leaders of the great powers. One of the first cases was between America and the United Kingdom in 1869.

America sought compensation from the United Kingdom for warships produced in British shipyards for the Confederacy in the American Civil War (1861-1865).
The case was named the CSS Alabama, after the most effective warship. It was launched at a shipyard in Birkenhead (near Liverpool) and delivered to the Confederacy in 1862.

The Arbitration Committee met in Geneva and established public international law, solidifying Geneva’s reputation as the capital of diplomacy and international law. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had its seat in this city as early as 1863.

After the First World War, the League of Nations was based in Geneva until it was dissolved in 1944. Today, the city is home to the European headquarters of the UN and 600 other international NGOs.

Geneva (and Switzerland) has hosted many meetings between parties and countries. American presidents have chosen the city for a meeting five times.

Ten years after the Second World War, the heads of state of the four superpowers— Russia, France, the United Kingdom —met. President Jimmy Carter (1924) and Syrian President Hafez el-Assad (1930-2000) met there in 1977.

The beginning of the end of the Cold War was marked by the first meeting between Ronald Reagan (1911-2004) and Mikhail Gorbatsjov (1931) in 1985. George H.W. Bush (1924-2018) met Syrian President Hafez al-Assad in 1990. Bill Clinton (1946) visited the city four times, including a meeting with the same Syrian president in 1994. His ‘anonymous’ cheese fondue is still legendary.

In regular times, the city hosts 10,000 large and small meetings and conferences a year, 150 years after the first international arbitration case.

The few meetings between the heads of state of the great powers pale into insignificance from this perspective. The prestige and the logistical operation are enormous and incomparable, however.

The world-famous industries of Cortaillod

The region of  Cortaillod (canton of Vaud) has been inhabited since prehistoric times. The oak stilts that appeared when the lake level was lowered due to the first correction of the Jura waters (1869-1891) are evidence of the pile dwellings of the Neolithic and Bronze Ages.

The village of Cortaillod (from the Latin ‘Curtile’ or ‘Cortillum’: small garden adjoining a farm) was founded by the inhabitants of Boudry (now the canton of Neuchâtel) in the Middle Ages. The village fell under three successive lordships: of Gorgier, of the priory of Bevaix and of the county of Neuchâtel.

In 1503, the village’s inhabitants obtained permission from Aimon de Montfaucon, the bishop of Lausanne (1443-1517), to build the Saint Nicolas chapel. In the 16th century, under the Confederation’s domination (1512-1529), the commune obtained permission to build a mill on the Vivier.

Claude Abram DuPasquier (1717-1783) and Jacques-Louis Pourtalès (1722-1814) founded and developed the painted cloth industry ‘indiennes’ in the 18th century. This technique was a great success, and the fame spread throughout Europe.

The Fabrique-Neuve in Cortaillod was one of its first and largest. At the end of the century, its production reached 45,000 pieces and employed more than 700 workers.

The continental blockade, established by the French decree of 21 November 1806 (Napoleon closed the ports of the European continent to trade with England) and the law prohibiting the entry of printed cloth into the French Empire (1852-1870) accelerated the decline of this industry.

From 1879, the Société d’Exploitation des Câbles Électriques, Berthoud-Borel system (later Alcatel Cable and today Nexans) became the main industry, and its products made Cortaillod known in many countries of the world.

(Source and more information: www.cortaillod.ch).

The Village of Concise and Surroundings

The village of Concise (canton of Vaud) and the surrounding villages (Corcelles-près-Concise, Onnens, La Golette, Concise-Sous-Colachoz) did not exist five thousand years ago.

However, along the Neuchâtel-Yverdon-les-Bains railway line, built between 1859 and 1870, 25 sites of pile dwellings have been found. These were covered by two metres of earth and are partially well preserved. They date from the period 3,900-1700 BC.

The pile dwellings stood on the edge of the lake. There is little evidence of stilts until 4000 BC, but the area was inhabited. This has been proven by burial ritual objects.

The age of the pile dwellings ranges from 3,900 BC (Neolithic age) to the present day. (Neolithic Age) to 1700 BC (Bronze Age). (Bronze Age). Then they disappeared. Pile dwellings can again be demonstrated in the 11th century. This was a relatively colder period, and the lake level was lower. This trend continued until 900-800 BC. (Hallstatt period).

One of the most famous villages was in Grandson-Corcelettes.

The history of Concise continues with the Celtic period (La Tène), the Favarges quarry in Roman times (used for the construction of the Roman city Aventicum (today Avenches), Christianity, the Burgundians (first kingdom 443-534), the Merovingians and the Carolingians (534-888), the Burgundians (second kingdom 888-1032), the German kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, the Counts and Dukes of Savoy (1207-1536), the city of Bern (1536 and the Reformation), the Helvetic Republic (1798-1803) and finally the Swiss Confederations (1803-1813, 1815 and 1848) and the canton of Vaud

Source: O. Meuwly and others, Histoire Vaudoise, Lausanne 2015).

St. John the Baptist in Concise

The village’s history dates back to the pile dwellings, which were built between 4300 and 1570 B.C. The site of today’s Concise (canton of Vaud) had twenty-eight pile dwellings.

In Roman times the village had a quarry, which supplied the builders of the provincial capital Aventicum (Avenches), with limestone. At this time, Conciza got its Latin name, cut wood or cut forest.

From about 1050, Concise was governed by the Grandson family. The Romanesque church of St. John the Baptist (St. Jean-Baptiste) dates from this time and was under the supervision of the priory of Grandson until the Reformation in 1536.

The two chapels forming the transept are Gothic in style. The nave was built in 1677 in the late Gothic style. The west facade has a neo-Romanesque window typical of the 19th century.

(Source and further information: https://concise.ch).

La Grande Béroche and Saint-Aubin

Saint Aubin has been inhabited since ancient times, as evidenced by the remains from the Neolithic period. Romans, Burgundians and Franks then colonised the region. In 1176, the bishop of Lausanne donated the church to the abbey of Saint Maurice.

Abbot Guillaume (who died in 1198) rebuilt the church in 1180. From then on, the church was the spiritual heart of the area, still known as La Béroche today, which stretches from the municipality of Bevaix to the border with Vaud and the Ruz de la Vaux on one hand, and from Lake Neuchâtel to the Creux-du-Van on the other.

In 1433, the Châtellenie of Gorgier Saint-Aubin was acquired by Count Jean I of Neuchâtel (1374-1466), Lord of Vaumarcus, and became part of the County of Neuchâtel. The abbey of Saint-Maurice exercised its authority until the Reformation in 1531. From that year on, the church became a Protestant temple.

Since 1888, Saint-Aubin has been a municipality with Sauges. At the end of 2016, the population of the villages of Bevaix, Fresens, Gorgier, Montalchez, Saint-Aubain-Sauges and Vaumarcus agreed to merge to form the new municipality of La Grande Béroche.

(Source: www.saint-aubin-sauges.ch).

In Dialog with the Landscape

With its exceptional panorama, La Vue-des-Alpes is an attractive place on the pass between Neuchâtel and La Chaux-de-Fonds.

The panorama of the Alpine giants is set against the backdrop of the Jura landscapes and man-made objects, such as dry stone walls, wooded pastures, alpine chalets, and agricultural and livestock activities.

Art-en-Vue is a festival Dialogue avec le paysage that takes you on a journey of discovery through the landscape of La Vue-des-Alpes.

There is a trail with 13 monumental works by Jean-Paul Zimmermann, Emmanuel DuPasquier, known as Paxon, and Ruben Pensa.

(Source and more information: www.artenvue.ch).

Origen Summerfestival Creaziun

The programme of the annual summer festival of the Origen Foundation (Fundaziun Origen) in Riom (Canton of Grisons) revolves around creation and destruction, myth and evolution, paradise and the end of the world.

With 11 premieres and 132 events, Origen is venturing into a strong revival after the long pandemic silence.

The festival is dedicated to the power of creation: in myth, in art, in nature. The artists present their vision of creation and explore its meaning for the world to help humanity understand and live in harmony with a constantly evolving nature and environment.

The programme consists of dance recitals, concerts, musical theatre, Gregorian chant, exhibitions and cultural and historical events.

The programme starts on 1 July with “COR” by Juliano Nuñes (1990) and ends on 15 August with “Passengers” by Andrey Kaydanovskiy (1987).

The presale starts on 14 June.

(Source and more information: www.origen.ch).

Pile Dwellings around the Alps

In 2021, the „Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps“celebrated the tenth anniversary of its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The transnational site was entered into the UNESCO World Heritage registry on June 27th, 2011. Of the more than 1,000 known pile dwellings in Central Europe, only 111 representative sites in France, Italy, Switzerland, Slovenia, Austria, and Germany were selected to receive this special status and recognition.

(Source and further information: www.palafittes.org)