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Swiss art gains international recognition

Alice Bailly (1872 – 1938), Joy in the Woods, 1922, Öl auf Leinwand, Lot 73, Sotheby’s 28 November 2011 sale

Article published on Swissinfo.ch on 26 November, 2011: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/Swiss_art_gains_international_recognition.html?cid=31637600

As exhibitions multiply and auction houses up the bids, Swiss art is gaining momentum on the international scene. But there are still bargains to be had, experts say.

The next two weeks will see a string of auctions of Swiss art by major auction houses in Zurich: Sotheby’s (28 November), Christies (5 December) and Koller (9 December) are offering 500 works up for tender.

Auction sales of Swiss art have been taking place since the seventies, but for the past few years they have started to edge out of the confines of a conservative local art market. Paintings by Swiss Neo-Impressionists, Cuneo Amiet and Giovanni Giacometti and Symbolist, Ferdinand Hodler, are reaching prices that no one would have dared predict five years ago.

This small Cuneo Amiet (1868-1961), Hausbau II, 1908, Oil on canvas, (60 x 55 cm) is priced by Christie’s between € 650’000 and € 970’000.  (CHF 800’000 and CHF 1’200’000) for the December 5, 2011 sale.

“Even in these brackets, the paintings are not commanding anywhere near the price that works of comparable quality by mainstream Modernists would obtain,” said Hans-Peter Keller, Christie’s Head of Swiss Art.

He said that there are still “exquisite pieces at reasonable prices”. All three on-line catalogues (see links) propose works starting at less than CHF 2’000.

Swissinfo.ch asked Matthias Frehner, Director of Bern Fine Arts Museum, what he thought of the claim that Swiss art is climbing the ladder of international recognition. The Bern Kunstmuseum has recently presented in Munich, Germany, an exhibition entirely dedicated to Swiss art. According to Frehner, it was a resounding success.

He attributes the nascent international interest in Swiss art to two surprising factors. He said that a younger generation of art historians has inspired the rediscovery of local art history. He also believes that the spectacular success of contemporary Swiss artists, like Pipilotti Rist, or Fischli and Weiss, has had a trickle-down effect on the entire art scene.

Frehner points out that one of the major art collections of Modernist Swiss art (from the beginning of the last century) is in Dallas, Texas, the result of the collecting by an American couple, Nona and Richard Barrett.

“We tend to overlook the fact that Swiss artists rarely stayed at home and were often active proponents in the major art currents of their times,” Frehner insisted, giving as examples both Amiet and Giacometti who were involved with German Expressionists, Holder, who was a Symbolist, or Meret Oppenheimer, who contributed significantly to Surrealism.

He also gives credit to the many Swiss families of art collectors who recognized the worth of their homegrown artists, and he is convinced that annual fairs, like Art Basel, contribute to spreading the word, especially beyond Swiss frontiers.

“We discovered in Munich that the public enjoyed the discovery and fresh outlook that Swiss art offers,” Frehner explained.

This is a good time to enter the market for Swiss art, Keller advised, since there has been little movement until now, as works tended to stay in collections. But the context is changing quickly as Swiss art becomes more visible and is more largely exposed.

The fact that many of the art works were originally bought directly from the artists in their studios (another Swiss specificity) helps determine the provenance, added Stephanie Schleining Deschanel, Deputy Head of Sotheby’s Swiss art department. “When you purchase from our auction houses, you have the guarantee of the authenticity of the work.” A tremendous amount of research goes into preparing each sale, she said.

The on-line catalogues of the up-coming sales are a good entry point for newcomers who know nothing about Swiss art. Keller has discovered that thematic presentations are appealing to sellers, who become more inclined to part with pieces from their collections. They are also an agreeable way of walking through 250 years of art history.

That the power of the web in propagating the news to the outside world that Swiss art is desirable is obvious, Matthias Frehner acknowledged. According to Schleining, it has also made the role of auction houses more transparent.

Keller pointed out that this winter’s Christie’s sale is unusual, because a large number of the works on sale do not have a reserve price (in red in the catalogue). This means that the highest bidder wins, even if the bid is only a fraction of the estimated value.

“This is a great place to start a collection,” he affirmed.

LINKS

Christie’s e-catalogue

Koller e-catalogue

Sotheby’s e-catalogue

Galartis

Gianadda Foundation

Kunstmuseum Bern

Kunstmuseum Solothurn

ADDITIONAL INFO

Cuno Amiet and the cousins Augusto and Giovanni Giacometti (Alberto’s father) eschewed traditional alpine scenes to offer the Swiss a taste for Modernism, using glowing colours and diffused images. They hold the lion’s share in the sales, along with Ferdinand Holder and Albert Anker.

Swiss Expressionists Hermann Schere and Albert Müller founded “Rot-Blau” (red and blue) after meeting the German Expressionist, Ludwig Kirchner, in Davos in 1917. They are represented by fierce and fiery works from the twenties. Look out for Otto Morach.

     

Otto Morach (1887-1973), Recto: Selbstbildnis mit Stillleben, um 1914 (selfportrait) / verso: Sitzende Frau, um 1914, Oil on jute, Lot 225, Christie’s, 5 December 2011 sale

“Concrete art”, initiated in Zurich by Max Bill (who could not afford to stay at the Bauhaus after his teeth were knocked out during a theatre rehearsal) represents a rare example of a movement that originated in Switzerland and had a profound impact on similar ventures elsewhere.

Max Bill (1908-1994), Pythagoräisches dreieck im quadrat II, 1974-80, Oil on canvas, Lot 157, Christie’s, 5 December 2011 sale.

Discoveries in the upcoming auction sales also include early works by Hans Erni, when he still went by the name of François Grèque, and where similarities with Picasso’s figurative period are striking.

   

Hans Erni (1901), Collective number of two: Harlekin / Frauenbildnis mit Haarkranz, Gouache on paper, Lot 24, Christie’s, 5 December 2011 sale

Christies has a substantial number of pieces on sale from the Beyeler estate, a provision that was made by Ernst Beyeler before he passed away in 2010 in order to finance his Foundation in Basel.

An original Alberto Giacometti drawing is priced under CHF 10’000 and has been authenticated by the eponymous foundation.

Bidding can take place in person, on phone (register and be called), by web (register at least 24 hours ahead) or through “absentee bids”.

EXHIBITIONS OF SWISS ARTISTS

An Amiet exhibition, “Joy of my Life” Eduard Gerber Collection is currently taking place at Kunstmuseum Bern until 15 January 2012.

A landmark exhibition that draws parallels between Holder and Amiet is on at Kunstmuseum Solothurn until 2 January 2012.

Ernest Biéler (1863-1948), considered the “Anker from Suisse romande”, will be the subject of a large retrospective at the Fondation Pierre Gianadda (1 December 2011 – 26 February 2012), the same that was recently presented in Bern.

Ernest Biéler (1863-1948), Jeune Chevrier, Watercolour and Gouache over pencil on paper, Lot 182, Christie’s, 5 December 2011 sale

Pipilotti Rist ‘Eyeball Massage’ is currently on at the Hayward Gallery in London until 8 January 2012.

The works of Peter Fischli and David Weiss are currently on view at Tate Liverpool, the Minneapolis Walker Art Center, Paris Pompidou Centre and the Berlin Hamburger Bahnhof-Museum.

Félix Vallotton, a Swiss painter who was in close contact with the French Nabis, will be subject of a major retrospective at Musée d’Orsay in Paris in 2013.

Kunsthaus Zurich courts controversy with Nahmad show

Henri Matisse, La lecture (deux fillettes, bouquet de pivoines sur fond noir), 1947. Oil on canvas, 46 x 55.2 cm, The Nahmad Collection © 2011 Succession H. Matisse / ProLitteris, Zurich

Article first published by Swissinfo on 26.10.11

Zurich’s Kuntshaus was bound to rock the art establishment when it invited the notorious Nahmad dealers to exhibit their goods. The museum’s director stands by his choice.

Kunsthaus Director Christoph Becker is convinced that the quality of the works on show in “Miró, Monet, Matisse – The Nahmad Collection” will dispel any thoughts that a world-class art institution is catering to the commercial interests of a family who happens to deal art on a global scale. He explains his decision in an exclusive interview.

Christoph Becker, Director of Kunsthaus Zürich, photo Laird

The latest exhibition at Zurich’s fine arts museum is a direct consequence of its centenary celebration in 2010, when it revived the 1953 Picasso retrospective. Because the Nahmads had loaned key paintings, Becker “suspected” that they possessed many more and hoped that they could be convinced to show them.

The Nahmads have been dealing in art for five decades, ever since the three sons of a Sephardic banker from Syria left Beirut for Milan, then Paris or New York, London and Monaco, to escape the tensions in the Middle East.

Depending on the source, the Nahmads are said to have accumulated between 3’000 and 5’000 works of art – including more than 200 Picassos, a collection that is second only to that of the Picasso estate.

Most of the works are squirrelled away in a secure duty-free warehouse near Geneva airport. Even the Nahmads had never seen them displayed together before the Zurich exhibition.

But is not so much a collection, the art world says, than a stockpiling of works by specific artists in order to corner markets and influence prices. Hardly an art auction takes place in premier auction houses today without the Nahmad family either selling or buying. With a fortune estimated by Forbes at more than $3 billion – also amassed from currency and commodity trading – they have the financial clout to invest, possess, squeeze or drive markets. Occasionally, they hold on to their goods.

Amedeo Modigliani, Paul Guillaume, 1916, Oil on board laid down on cradled panel, 53 x 37 cm, The Nahmad Collection

“When I first approached the Nahmads, they said that they did not believe that they had a collection. I told them to think about it,” Becker said. Two weeks later and following many internal discussions, the publicity-shy family acquiesced and agreed to produce a core selection of 150 pieces, later reduced to a hundred.

“The selection met the highest museum standards. If it had not, I would have cancelled the show,” Becker said. Furthermore, he discovered what he qualifies as a “Nahmad taste”, with the prominence of some artists and the exclusion of others.

“Miró, Monet, Matisse – The Nahmad Collection” focuses on the five artistic periods between 1870 and 1970 favoured by the Nahmads, including Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism and Abstraction, Surrealism, and Picasso.

Claude Monet, Canotiers à Argenteuil, 1874, Oil on canvas, 60 x 81 cm, The Nahmad Collection

Visitors at the opening commented on the odd hanging, as if they were invited to discover crucial developments in art history, rather than the paintings themselves. A row of seven Modiglianis from the artist’s period of greatest artistic intensity in the years before his death in 1920 are lined up like models all sitting in the same chair facing the same window (they probably were).

Picasso’s colourfully riotous interpretations of Manet’s “Déjeuner sur l’herbe” or Delacroix’s “Les Femmes d’Alger”, all splashed on a single wall, prove to us that, yes, there can sometimes be too much of a good thing.

Becker wants us to understand that a collection “must be regarded as existing in a state of becoming.” What he is celebrating is the commitment of a group of individuals to art.

However, unlike the legendary art merchants who would discover and sustain artists, the Nahmads respond to auction barometers. “It’s the world upside down,” said Sami Kinge, who went to school in Beirut with David Nahmad. Contacted in Paris, where he runs an eponymous gallery in the tradition of the old-style merchants, he said laconically: “The Nahmads only buy and sell.”

Becker admitted that the exhibition, even before it opened, had caused a stir. Accused of becoming an ally to the most influential art dealers in the world, he insisted that his aim is only “to bring something into being.” There was no deal, he emphasized.

He added that the value of the works presented was “above money” and that the exhibition would therefore not influence auction prices any more. “With works of this quality, it’s impossible. If we thought we were turning the screw, we wouldn’t have done it.”

Urs Lanter, Director of the Swiss Art Department at auction house Sotheby’s concurred with Becker’s opinion. “Exceptional works command exceptional prices,” he said, “especially when they enjoy great provenance and when they are important in the art history and the career of the artist”.

Simon de Pury refuted the suggestion that the Kunsthaus could become the backdoor of auction houses. As head of Phillips de Pury & Company, the youngest and some say most dynamic of the three auction houses, he said that some of the greatest art collections in the world are the creation of art dealers. He gave the examples of Ernst Beyeler and Heinz Berggruen who built museums to house their collections, respectively in Switzerland and Germany.

“Museums cannot exist without collectors, and collectors cannot exist without art dealers,” he said, adding simply: “Greats museum show great art.”

What we perhaps learn from this exhibition is that market forces have become part of the fabric of museums. Art collectors donate to reduce their fiscal liability, art dealers take risks and get caught in monetary spirals.

Nobody knows what will become of the Nahmad collection. There are rumors, unconfirmed by Becker, that the present exhibition has inspired the Nahmads to make long term plans, now that they have discovered that they have a collection after all.

Pablo Picasso, Le petit pierrot aux fleurs (Portrait of the artist’s son, Paulo, as Harlequin), 1923/24, Oil on canvas, 92.1 x 73.6 cm, The Nahmad Collection © 2011 ProLitteris, Zurich

The Nahmads

Joe (Giuseppi), the elder and more flamboyant of the three Nahmad brothers, started his collection by commissioning paintings by Lucio Fontana and Wilfredo Lam in the lively Milan of the sixties. Almost 80, he now lives the life of a recluse.

His younger brothers, Ezra (1945) and David (1947) demonstrated entrepreneurial skills at a very early age and began investing in the stock market at the age of 15. They became interested in art through Joe.

For his first art transactions, David would lend a buyer the money to buy the work of art he was selling, then use the debt as collateral to obtain a loan from the bank.

Ezra’s son, Helly, opened the Helly Nahmad Gallery in London in 1998. He attended the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and has played a pivotal role in the organisation of the Zurich exhibit. David’s son, also named Helly after the grandfather, opened the Helly Nahmad Gallery in New York in 2004. He is often pictured with celebrities.

Art dealers

The legendary pre-Nahmad art merchants who bought directly from the artists (as opposed to auction houses) were Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (Cubism), Paul Rosenberg (Picasso and French Modernists), Sidney Janis (American Abstract Expressionism), Alexander Iolas (late Surrealism, Tinguely, Niki de Saint Phalle), Leo Castelli (Pop art) and more recently Bruno Bischofberger (Basquiat).

The exhibition

‘Miró, Monet, Matisse – The Nahmad Collection’ features more than 100 paintings by Miró,

Picasso, Matisse, Kandinsky, Monet, Magritte and many others. The Impressionist section is dominated by Monet; Abstraction is represented by Kandinsky, Malevich and Mondrian; Surrealism represented by De Chirico, Magritte, Tanguy, Max Ernst and especially Joan Miro.

Picasso’s “Petit Pierrot aux fleurs” (Harlequin with Flowers), a portrait of his son painted in 1923/24, is considered one of the highlights of the show.

The lavishly illustrated and commented catalogue is sold for CHF 45.00.

The exhibition runs until 15 January 2011.

The Kunsthaus Zurich averages 300’000 visitors a year, with records between 2’000 and 3’000 daily visitors for the major exhibits, including the recent Picasso retrospective.

Links

“Miró, Monet, Matisse – The Nahmad Collection”

Kunsthaus Zürich

Helly Nahmad (London)

Helly Nahmad Gallery (New York)

 

Joan Miró, Soirée snob chez la princesse, ca 1946, Pastel and gouache on paper, 31.4 x 51.4 cm, The Nahmad Collection © Successió Miró / 2011 ProLitteris, Zurich

Photos that expose “The Other America”

Mitch Epstein, American Power, Plate-forme pétrolière “Ocean Warwick”, Dauphin Island, Alabama, 2005 / Ocean Warwick Oil Platform, Dauphin Island, Alabama, 2005, © Black River Productions, Ltd./Mitch Epstein. Courtesy Thomas Zander, Cologne

Article first published on 21 September 2011 by Swissinfo.ch: http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/culture/Photos_that_expose_The_Other_America.html?cid=31187806

In the wake of the 9/11 commemorations, three major contemporary American photographers present unfamiliar and intriguing images from the United States.

Emotion, power and nostalgia are the distinct themes presented in three parallel exhibitions under the collective title, “The Other America”, at the Musée de l’Elysée in Lausanne.

By revealing the paradoxes of their homeland with images of sometimes brutal beauty, Frank Schramm, Saul Leiter and Mitch Epstein show us a different America.

The photographic language of the artists whose works fill Switzerland’s premier photography museum could not be further apart. But they share a sharp sobriety and elegance that challenges the divide between documentary photography and art.

“These three exhibitions encourage us to question our attitudes towards the US,” Elysée Director, Sam Stourdzé, said at the opening.

Frank Schramm, Stand-ups – Reporting Live from Ground Zero, 28 septembre, 2001 (#4) / September 28, 2001 (#4), ©Frank Schramm. Courtesy Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne

Reporting from Ground Zero

Frank Schramm was in New York on September 11, 2001. But rather than chronicle the event, he stepped back to portray those who were on the frontline of the news delivery. Over the following weeks, he photographed the TV presenters who provided the news in an endless loop.

Segregated in an area on the West River at some distance from the cordoned-off Ground Zero, they became the “stand-ups” reporting the live events that they themselves were not allowed to see.

“Photographing the journalists became my way of dealing with my own emotions,” Frank Schramm told swissinfo.ch. “In my emotions, I was wondering how they were dealing with theirs.”

The resulting portraits, many of which have the glossy perfection of a fashion shot, have never been shown publicly before this year. None carry any names, although many of the portrayed presenters are well known.

“This work is not about the journalists. It’s not about who they are. It’s about: can a tragic event bridge towards art,” Schramm observed.

Pauline Martin, who curated the show, explained that the journalists, as they became the mediators of a nation’s collective trauma, were also unwittingly contributing to the success of the terrorist act by amplifying the media coverage.

“The series serves as a manifesto: terrorism cannot exist without the major role played by the media and the images they broadcast,” she insisted. Press fortunes and careers are made overnight by disasters.

“Life goes on, we move forward. I wanted to remember what we were feeling,” Schramm recalled.

Frank Schramm, Stand-ups – Reporting Live from Ground Zero, 17 septembre, 2001 (#5) / September 17, 2001 (#5)

“American Power”

Under the provocative and ambiguous title, “American Power”, Mitch Epstein documents the massive reliance of the US on unlimited amounts of energy.

From 2003 to 2008, Epstein crisscrossed the country in search of the installations either in use, or abandoned, that have contributed to the “power of America”.

“He uses an artistic approach to tackle important social issues,” Stourdzé said of Epstein, whom he considers to be one of the most important photographers today.

“By looking at the larger American landscape and identifying the sites that produce energy, I watch the story between communities, corporations and the government unfold,” Epstein explained, adding, “This work is a reflection on American culture at this time.”

He said that he was not an environmental activist, but that he realised that America takes a lot for granted. “We were handed a lot and we expect a lot. This has created a sense of entitlement.”

Mitch Epstein, American Power, Barrage de Hoover et Lac Mead, Nevada/ Arizona, 2007 / Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, Nevada/ Arizona, 2007, © Black River Productions, Ltd./Mitch Epstein. Courtesy Thomas Zander, Cologne

Politics are the driving agenda, according to Epstein. Workers who have contributed to the might of the nation become renegades when the power plants are abandoned or relocated. He sets out to tell their stories too.

“My pictures are complex because I want to produce a metaphorical narrative of things American and compress as much as I can into a single image,” he said.

It is not without irony that his panorama includes images of lakes once used to cool off nuclear power plants and that have now become leisure areas, mostly for immigrant workers.

The 65 pictures of scarred landscapes have a stand-alone perfection that makes them almost abstract. We are looking at a country’s destructive reliance on energy, but at its optimism as well.

Photography is a language, Epstein stated. “It is my job to use that language in all its fluency.”

“Early Color”

Sam Stourdzé, who curated the third show in a theatrical display that occupies the entire third floor of his museum, presented the works of Saul Leiter, too aged to be present.

Leiter, born in 1923, first trained as a painter before exploring photography. He discovered “street photography” by visiting the exhibition of Henri Cartier-Bresson at MoMa in 1947 and from there on began to photograph his environment. But he was less interested in scenes, than in capturing fragments of scenes.Saul Leiter: Early Color, Taxi, 1957

“His early attempts in black and white were fairly ordinary, but when he switched to colour, his eye as a painter and a colourist took over,” Strourdzé explained. Images become compositions, each one the beginning of a story.

“Leiter plunges us into a nostalgic America of the Fifties,” Stourdzé explained. “He is sharing his solitary moments of reverie.”

It is precisely the poetic dimension of The Other America that allows a documentary exhibition to emerge as art. Stourdzé is convinced that “visual narratives can transform the way we look at things”.

This is the first time the pictures have been shown in Switzerland.

Saul Leiter: Early Color, Parade, 1954

Innovative young designer Georgacopoulos takes over as head of ECAL design school

Alexis Georgacopoulos, new head of Ecal (photo Michèle Laird)

Article published by www.swissinfo.ch in an edited form on 15 August 2011

Taking risks will continue to be the order of the day for Switzerland’s premier design school under its new director.

Recently appointed to the helm of the Lausanne University of Art and Design (ECAL), Alexis Georgacopoulos has big shoes to fill following the 16-year reign of legendary Pierre Keller.

Keller transformed the small Lausanne art school into a major design university and relocated it to a former hosiery factory in Renens, which was redesigned by renowned Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi.

Bernard Tschumi’s renovation of the Iril Factory that now serves as ECAL © Peter Mauss

The school is now regarded by design magazine Wallpaper as “one of Europe’s leading art and design schools”,  and by Business Week as one of the top ten design schools in the world.

THE NEED TO SURPRISE

As he prepares his first year as ECAL director, he tells Swissinfo how he believes that risk-taking sparks the creativity that is the key to the school’s success.  It will continue to guide the school’s visual arts, industrial design and visual communication branches, he assures.

“We need to surprise our public, as well as our students.”

Georgacopoulos is no newcomer to ECAL since he arrived as a student in 1994 and has taken an active part in its spectacular development. By the age of 24 he had become the head of the industrial design department and has clocked up a number of design successes in his own right. He is now 35 years old.

“We realised very early on that good design results from taking risks and never repeating ourselves,” he said.

He identifies three events that allowed Ecal to become an international player: a prize in 2000 for a portable bread baguette design from the Saint Etienne Design Biennal; 2001’s inventive milking stools that continue to be presented at design fairs around the world; and anti-seismic tables.

“Baguette Portable”. By ECAL second year industrial design students under the direction of Alexis Georgacopoulos, 2000. Photo ECAL/Pierre Fantys

“People said we were completely mad, but in fact we were gaining the credentials that would allow us to create innovative partnerships with the companies that wanted to take the same risks as us,” Georgacopoulos said.

Furniture and kitchen makers B&B Italia and Boffi were the first on board, followed by Swiss International Air Lines, Nestlé, Swatch Group and Baccarat to name a few of the international companies which sought Ecal’s expertise.

PARTNERING UP WITH ALESSI

More recently, Italian design company Alessi asked Ecal design students to develop projects around the theme of the office and home study. The results were presented in Alessi’s showroom during the Milan Furniture Fair in April, and will travel to Belgium as part of Design September Brussels before heading to Tokyo’s Design Tide fair in October.

Alessi’s President Alberto Alessi said of the collaboration: “I am amazed by how much enthusiasm and depth was given to analyze the single functions, by the freshness of expression in all proposals and the pleasant quest for simplicity,” adding that the collaboration will carry on.

ECAL/Alessi, Salon international du Meuble de Milan 2011. Photo ECAL/Julien Chavaillaz

“Our students jump in the deep end,” Georgacopoulos indicates of the opportunity that ECAL offers them to work on partner projects already in their second year. “They receive immediate visibility and exposure and often cultivate the relationships that will serve them well when they leave the school.”

Nicolas Le Moigne began his training at Ecal in 2001. Two years later Italian interior design company Serralunga had already started producing his inclined “Pot au mur” flowerpot .

“It was unbelievable,” Le Moigne told swissinfo.ch while on his way to Mexico, where he will be teaching in a design school. “Ecal opens so many doors.”

He is now producing a magnetic candleholder with Atelier Pfister, created by the Swiss furniture store as a launching pad for young designers.

More than design

For Georgacopoulos, Ecal is much more than a design school. As evidence, he cites Ecal’s success at this year’s the Locarno Film Festival, at which three Ecal entries received prizes in the national short film competition.

“3 out of 3! An unbelievable success!” enthused Georgacopoulos. “Ecal is an art school where creativity is used to foster ideas and explore new directions in all areas.”

The short films presented in Locarno were the result of an alliance between the cinema section and Lausanne-based theatre school, La Manufacture. The project will be presented again at the Centre culturel suisse in Paris in November.

As for the visual arts, Georgacopoulos pointed to alumni artist Cyprien Gaillard, whose work will be exhibited at the Pompidou Centre modern art gallery in Paris this autumn, and David Hominal, Valentin Carron and Philippe Decrauzat whose work is also exhibited widely abroad.

“These are artists who reinvent themselves every day, often experimenting in new mediums,” he said.

This year more than 400 people applied for the 120 places at Ecal, and Georgacopoulos said his role is to act as something of a talent scout when interviewing prospective students.

“Under the layers of insecurity, you can usually spot those who have true potential and you start imagining the kinds of projects that they can start on. This is the thrilling part of my new job,” he said.

Designer Alexis Georgacopoulos

Class photo, ECAL/Lauris Paulus

Modern masters from a unique Swiss collection

“Van Gogh, Bonnard, Vallotton…”. Lausanne’s Fondation de l’Hermitage is offering a rare chance to view works by modern masters from the acclaimed Hahnloser collection.


Pierre Bonnard, Le débarcadère (ou L’embarcadère) de Cannes, 1934, huile sur toile, 43,5 x 56,5 cm, Hahnloser/Jaeggli Stiftung, Villa Flora, Winterthour © photo Reto Pedrini, Zurich © 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich

Article published in www.swissinfo.ch on 5 August 2011: Modern masters from a unique Swiss collection

Built up in Winterthur between 1905 and 1936 by an ophthalmologist, Arthur Hahnloser, and his artist wife, Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler, the collection is a valuable snapshot of a period in art history poised between Impressionism and Modernism.

It is also the uncommon story of how a Swiss family of neither great means, nor artistic standing, shaped a prestigious private collection.

“The collection is unique not only because of its vision and coherence, but also because it is one of the few private art collections that has remained virtually intact,” Angelika Affentranger-Kirchrath, curator of the Villa Flora in Winterthur, told swissinfo.ch.

Villa Flora is the former home of the Hahnloser family that became a museum in 1995. Inspired by the Viennese Secession style, or Jugendstil, it is considered a work of art in itself, but is not large enough to showcase the large art collection gathered over 30 years by the Hahnlosers.

The 150-work exhibition currently on view at Fondation de l’Hermitage in Lausanne provides an opportunity to grasp the significance of the obsessive collecting of a family from Winterthur, as well as discover some outstanding art.

Meeting with Hodler

It was the Graubünden painter Giovanni Giacometti, father of Alberto, who introduced the Hahnlosers to the art scene, including to Ferdinand Hodler, the controversial, but admired painter whose work they would subsequently defend.

Ferdinand Hodler, Le massif de la Jungfrau vu depuis Mürren, 1911, huile sur toile, 72 x 91 cm, Hahnloser/Jaeggli Stiftung, Villa Flora, Winterthour © photo Reto Pedrini, Zurich

Hedy later wrote of the encounter with Hodler, “We were experiencing for the first time what we would live through hundreds of times: the irrepressible desire to look at the world through the eyes of a master.”

“Hedy was clearly the driving force behind the collection,” says Affentranger, although she points out that Hedy’s husband, Arthur, and cotton magnate brother-in-law, Emil, also played active roles. Emil Hahnloser’s part of the collection reverted to the Hahnloser estate upon his death in 1940.

“She wanted above all to live with her times and  believed that art was actually the best way to do this,” says the curator of a woman whose Protestant upbringing and health problems due to tuberculosis were to leave the image of someone both incredibly strong and exceedingly frail. She survived her husband by 16 years.

“Hedy Hahnloser wanted to decorate life with art, but there was nothing ostentatious about her,” Affentranger says.

Hedy Hahnloser-Bühler at Villa Flora in Winterthur, 1935 (Willy Maywald)

From 1908 until the doctor’s sudden death in 1936 the couple made frequent trips to France, including to Cannes where they had purchased a house to be close to the artistic community.

They acquired works from the contemporary artists that they visited in their studios, often inviting them to stay at Villa Flora. This was a novel approach to collecting art, Affentranger emphasises.

The Hahnloser’s dedication to the artists of their times pinpoints moments in art history that are visible in the current exhibition.

A unique exhibition

“This is the first time that so many of the works have been displayed together,” Affentranger says, adding that the process of curating the Lausanne show in collaboration with Juliane Cosandier, the departing Hermitage director and her successor Sylvie Wuhmann, was a complex, but inspiring experience.

The collection threads it way through the gracious Lausanne mansion not in chronological order, but in single artist or thematic presentations, an arrangement that produces some interesting associations.

“The Nabis form the heart of the collection, so we decided to present a ‘collection within the collection’,” says Affentranger explaining the monographic displays by Pierre Bonnard and Félix Vallotton, the main proponents of the post-Impressionist movement who became close friends of the Hahnlosers.

Félix Vallotton,La Blanche et la Noire, 1913, huile sur toile, 114 x 147 cm, Hahnloser/Jaeggli Stiftung, Villa Flora, Winterthour © photo Reto Pedrini, Zurich

The intimacy of what Bonnard called his “enchanting moments” – women lost in reverie as they bathe or wait for something to happen – comes in stark contrast to the fiercely enigmatic works by Vallotton.

Fauvists

Other revelations include an Odilon Redon of unusually riotous colours and works by Impressionists of an unexpected nature: Paris rooftops by Cézanne, streaks of fireworks by Van Gogh and feathery landscapes by Renoir.

To cap the collection, the Fauve artists, who succeeded the Nabis, are represented by Matisse, Rouault and Henri Manguin, possibly previously unknown to many visitors.

Henri-Charles Manguin,La Sieste ou Le Rocking Chair, Jeanne, 1905, huile sur toile, 89 x 117 cm, collection privée, Villa Flora, Winterthour © photo Reto Pedrini, Zurich © 2011, ProLitteris, Zurich

“We have restored the initial excitement and the radical achievements of one of the most important private collections in Switzerland,” says Cosandier, who admits she is pleased to be closing her 15 successful years as Hermitage director with this prestigious exhibition.

Sagmeister, prince d’un graphisme art-pop au mudac

Le mudac à Lausanne consacre une importante exposition à Stefan Sagmeister. L’artiste autrichien établi à New York est le plus conceptuel des ad-men et le plus chic des graphistes art-pop. Avec ses mises en scène provocantes et absurdes, un sens de l’humour débridé mais élégant, Sagmeister est passé maître dans le ‘over-statement’ visuel au service de ‘l’under-statement’ commercial.

Sagmeister, c’est le minimalisme érigé en expression artistique, l’imagination au service de l’efficacité.

« Je vends la culture, les corporations, mes amis et moi-même » annonçait-il lors de l’inauguration de son exposition le 6 mars 2011.

« J’étais tenté, à l’occasion de ce projet, de m’éloigner du design. Mais, en somme, c’est quelque chose que j’ai souvent fait, alors j’ai décidé, au contraire, d’entrer de plein pied dans le commercial en ne présentant que des commandes. »

jusqu’au 13 juin 2011, « Encore une exposition sur la promotion et la vente », le titre de la 11ème exposition de la série « carte blanche » du mudac – le musée de design et arts appliqués à Lausanne – explore l’efficacité de l’image au service du message.

« L’impact culturel d’un message m’importe encore plus que son résultat en terme de chiffres d’affaires, » explique Sagmeister.

« Du reste, plus les spécifications (the brief) sont longues, moins le projet sera bon, » précise-t-il.

Stefan Sagmeister, « Singes en Ecosse », 2007 (détail) 6 sculptures gonflables géantes © Stefan Sagmeister. Pendant la journée et pour la durée de l’exposition, un de ces singes explose d’une fenêtre du mudac, à moitié dedans et à moitié dehors.

« Notre mission est de révéler la puissance de la vie, » (the power of life) Sagmeister déclare sans sourcilier, ses lèvres posées dans un immobilisme que ses yeux contredisent.

L’exposition à Lausanne est une retrospective qui retrace l’acheminement d’un créatif touche à tout sans tabous. Il joue avec les mots autant qu’avec les objets. Une chaise réalisée comme un bloc note ondulé, avec des affiches qui s’effeuillent, et une table magnétisée révèlent une imagination hors limites, mais pragmatique, car ces objets, ô surprise, sont merveilleusement utilisables.

L’artiste publiciste s’est d’abord fait un nom dans la musique. Designer attitré de David Byrne, Bryan Eno, Talking Heads, Lou Reed et, occasionnellement, des Rolling Stones, il a trouvé, dès le début de sa carrière, la parfaite parade pour combiner ses deux amours : le design et la musique. “C’était la meilleure façon de rencontrer Bryan Eno, précise Sagmeister, un vrai plaisir pour ce qu’il dit encore plus que pour sa musique.”

Plusieurs exemples de ces collaborations, dont certaines ont été couronnées de Grammy Awards,  figurent dans l’expo.

Issu de la petite ville soporifique autrichienne de Bregenz à l’extrémité est du Lac Constance, à quelques encablures de la Suisse, Sagmeister se dit très attaché à sa ville natale.

A la suite d’études à Vienne, continuées à New York et couronnées par un passage à Hong Kong, il s’est installé de manière définitive dans la Grande Pomme en 1993.

Mais Stefan Sagmeister retourne régulièrement à Bregenz, la ville qui a également donné naissance, en 1997, au Kunsthaus Bregenz (KUB), le légendaire musée de Peter Zumthor. Sous des airs de fausse candeur, Bregenz montre une singulière audace, tout comme Sagmeister.

Affiche réalisée à l’occasion de deux expositions au Japon sur le travail de Sagmesiter. Pendant une semaine, il a ingurgité la somme des produits visibles, son poids passant de 81 à 92 kilos en 8 jours. Stefan Sagmeister, “GGG-DDD Poster”, 2003 © Stefan Sagmeister

 

Se réservant une soupape de compression, il disparaît régulièrement à Bali pour des périodes sabbatiques pendant lesquelles il refuse tout mandat, y compris celui de s’occuper de la première campagne présidentielle d’Obama, comme ce fut le cas. Actuellement là bas, il est venu quelques jours en Suisse à l’occasion du lancement de son exposition à Lausanne et d’une conférence à l’écal, l’école cantonale d’art de Lausanne. Sagmeister explique qu’il s’impose ces arrêts pour retrouver les repères de sa créativité.

La rétrospective lausannoise a la particularité d’être une carte blanche boomerang, où l’artiste concerné offre lui-même carte blanche à des personnes de confiance pour la réalisation d’un projet sur lui-même.

Ainsi, le zurichois Martin Woodtli, ancien collaborateur de Stefan Sagmeister, a été chargé du carton d’invitation, de l’affiche et du (superb) catalogue, alors que le collectif lausannois très en vue Big-Game a réalisé la scénographie de l’exposition.

Mais la personne pivot de cette entreprise, qui sera reprise par le musée des Arts Décoratifs à Paris du 13 octobre 2011 au 19 février 2012, n’est autre que la directrice du mudac de Lausanne, Chantal Prod’Hom, dont on soupçonne que les années auprès de la fondation Benetton, à laquelle a également été associé Sagmeister, ne sont pas complètement étrangères à ce choix.

“Ce qu’il y a de formidable dans le travail de Stefan, dit Chantal Prod’Hom, c’est ce qu’il raconte.”

« L’exposition est plus limpide et précise que si je l’avais élaborée moi-même, » conclut Stefan Sagmesiter en hommage à ses hôtes avant de reprendre l’avion pour Bali.

http://www.sagmeister.com/

Réalisé à l’0ccasion d’une campagne de sensibilisation contre les coupes budgétaires du gouvernement américain, le bus dédoublé qui sillonait les Etats Unis s’est révélé un moyen de communication plus économique et efficace qu’une importante campagne d’affichage d’après son auteur. Stefan Sagmeister, « True Majority », 2004, Bus dédoublé © Stefan Sagmeister

Lust and Vice censored in Bern

Bruce Nauman, Vices and Virtues, 1983–1988/2008, Neon-Schrift (18-teilig), Courtesy of the artist and Stuart Collection, University of California, San Diego. Photo: Markus Mühlheim © 2010, ProLitteris, Zürich

A remarkable panorama on the portrayal of sin by artists over the last 11 centuries is being held at the Kunstmuseum Bern and the Zentrum Paul Klee. But the last-minute removal of 3 works on the theme of lust and the decision to restrict access to under 16 year-olds sends worried ripples through the art world. The public flocks, but is it for art or titillation?

The exhibition ‘Lust and Vice, the 7 deadly sins from Dürer to Nauman’ until February 13 at the Kunstmuseum Bern and the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern has become a succès à scandale, precisely what it was seeking to avoid.

Coming hot on the trail of the much-disputed censorship of a retrospective in Paris of the American photographer Larry Clark, the last-minute removal of two pictures by the same artist from the exhibit has met with criticism, especially since one of the works is on the web anyway.

“There is definitely a before and after the Paris decision,” admits Juri Steiner, director of the Paul Klee Zentrum, where the section on lust is displayed.

He and his Kunstmuseum Bern counterpart, Matthias Frehner, made a last-minute joint decision to take out the two Larry Clark photographs, as well as an explicit watercolour of female genitalia by the German political expressionist George Grosz. They also established the age restriction rule.

In Paris, the popular Socialist mayor, Bertrand Delanoë took the unprecedented decision to ban under 18 year-olds from seeing the Larry Clark photography retrospective Kiss the past hello at the Modern art museum.

For the past 50 years Clark has chronicled teenagers in situations of great vulnerability and sometimes distress as they discover lust and drugs. Google his name and you will understand.

“We decided to remove Clark’s photographs,” Steiner explains, “because we realized that they had the power to focalize attention at the cost of the 250 other works in the exhibition.”

Vice and Lust is the culmination of two and a half years of work by curators Fabienne Eggelhöfer (ZPK), Claudine Metzger (KMB) and Samuel Vitali (KMB).

The vivacious and spirited Fabienne Eggelhöfer takes time off to explain how the two major Bern institutions worked together to cover a theme that would be any curator’s dream.

“We have already collaborated together,” Eggelhöfer says, “but this is the first time we have worked on a theme,” adding that the combination  secured more significant loans.

“It has been interesting, if not always easy,” she develops, explaining that the three curators met together every week. Without any subject segmentation, they discussed their different perceptions of sin and come to an agreement on the choice of the art works.

 

Jealousy: Fernand Cormon, Jalousie au sérail, 1874, Musée des Beaux-Arts et d’Archéologie, Besançon

The seven deadly sins, Fabienne Eggelhöfer explains, were defined as early as the late antiquity under the Egyptians to preserve the monastic vow of an intact relationship with God. This meant proscribing the sinful thoughts or behaviours that could get in the way.

These included pride, greed, envy, anger, laziness, gluttony and lust.

 

Lust: Sigmar Polke, Ohne Titel, 1973, Kunstmuseum Bern Sammlung Toni Gerber
Bern – Schenkung, 1983 © 2010, ProLitteris, Zürich

 

“The seven sins became a reoccurring theme throughout art history,” Eggelhöfer says, although it was sometimes difficult for the curators to decide to which category a work should be assigned.

Furthermore, she points out, values change. Greed is now cultivated by contemporary marketing strategies. We are constantly being invited to gain points, clock up miles, win a car.

 

Greed: Thomas Couture, La soif de l’or, 1844, Musée des Augustins, Toulouse

Lust is another case in point, she says, since the notion of lust being sinful was society’s attempt at limiting unwanted births and children without families. The advent of the pill in the 60s transformed the situation.

(Notice how it also ushered into art the male member in its erectile state. Various examples are on display.)

“When selecting the pieces to illustrate sin, we were careful to choose artists who had more than a single work to suit the themes,” Fabienne Eggelhöfer emphasizes, “and who showed an interest in the human condition.”

“I would be mistreating an oeuvre if I were to use it to illustrate my own ideas,” she says.

 

Sloth (laziness): Markus Muntean / Adi Rosenblum, Untitled (Everything was as it had…),
2001, Sammlung Dr. Fuchs, Wien

The three curators have succeeded in creating a harmonious ensemble that avoids a moralistic stance. “We don’t refer to homosexuality,” Eggelhöfer specifies, “because this is an exhibition on sin.”

When it came to distributing the works between the two museums, decisions came easily, she indicates.

The Kunstmuseum, with its smaller rooms was to receive the more spiritual pieces and cover the themes of pride, envy, greed and anger, whereas the Zentrum Paul Klee would expose the larger and more “carnal” works, while concentrating on lust, gluttony and sloth.

“But in some instances, we changed our minds at the last minute and transferred a selected piece from one category to another.”

Delightful fine-lined drawings by Klee are dispersed throughout, some of them decidedly naughty, others a lot of fun and they could belong anywhere.

 

Gluttony: Martin Parr, Luxury USA, Los Angeles, 2008, Galerie Nicola von Senger, Zürich

The section on lust is divided into two sections, the one with works of more overt sexuality is sectioned off with the warning:

“Lust and Vice is not suitable for adolescents under the age of 16. Some of the works on display in the Zentrum Paul Klee may be considered as pornographic and might shock them and perhaps even you. The cultural value of these works justifies their protection.”

Would such a warning not have sufficed?

Bernard Fibicher, director of the cantonal fine arts museum in Lausanne, does not understand a decision that he qualifies as “irresponsible”.

“The organisation of an exhibition implies an internal mechanism of censorship,” he says. “At each stage, you have to ask yourself what are the risks and if you can stand by your choices.”

In 2005, Fibicher organised the controversial exhibition on contemporary Chinese art at the same Bern Kunstmuseum in which the head of a human foetus grafted onto a seagull’s body was exhibited to general outcry.

“You have to think things through before, not afterwards,” he argues.

“I also find it disturbing that self-censorship in Switzerland should be the result of something that is happening elsewhere,” Fibicher points out.

In recent interviews with the Financial Times and Le Monde, Larry Clark says of the censorship of his Paris show, “I think it’s just the stupidest thing in the world . . . it’s an attack on youth and on teenagers in general,” whom, he believes, receive the message that they should be swallowing garbage from the web instead of going to art museums.

Over 18 year-olds, he suggests, should be the ones barred from the exhibition.

 

Pride: Daniela Rossell, Untitled (Itati next to her pool), from the serie “Third World Blondes“
2001, Galleria Alberto Peola, Turin

“It is true,” Fabienne Eggelhöfer concedes, “that we would probably have done a different choice of works had we known.”

“But nevertheless, we had a great time putting it together,” she says, reminding us of the many prestigious works that can be admired until February 20, including by Marina Abramovic, Marc Chagall, Otto Dix, Albrecht Dürer, Fischli / Weiss, Gilbert & George,  Paul Klee, Bruce Nauman, Martin Parr, Sigmar Polke, Peter Paul Rubens, Cindy Sherman, Yinka Shonibare, Andy Warhol and many more.

High-spirited dance brings Las Vegas to Lausanne


Je veux bien, copyright Charlotte Walker

Philippe Saire, the Swiss choreographer of international repute, brings his fascination for the seedy glamour and tinsel glitter of Las Vegas to Sevelin theatre in Lausanne. A whimsical plot casts the dancers as bumbling entertainers whose antics never wipe off their wide-eyed smiles. The result is full of theatrical fantasy and unbridled fun.

To say that Philippe Saire’s latest production is dance would not do it justice. “Je veux bien vous croire” (I’d like to believe you) closes a trilogy dedicated to the world of American entertainment by Switzerland’s most versatile choreographer.

The Philippe Saire company, following performances in Brazil and before going to the legendary Joyce Theater in New York in January, is wrapping up its shows on show business at the Sevelin Theatre in Lausanne.

Is this real, we ask ourselves, photo Mario del Curto

Started in 2006, Saire’s “narrative trilogy”, as he calls it,  borrows the codes of razzmatazz show-biz to transform them into a cerebral questioning on the purpose of distraction and escape.

The circus, Broadway musical and magic antics can be taken at face value or bolster your neurons.

The audience is swept into Saire’s shows never really knowing what to expect and that’s part of the game.

“Est-ce que je peux me permettre d’attirer votre attention sur la brièveté de la vie?” (May I please call your attention to the shortness of life) in 2006 was a big affair that thundered across the stage in a collage of wild-fire scenes.

“When I finished creating this show, I felt that I still had a lot to say on the theme of entertainment,” Philippe Saire explains.

The result was “Il faut que je m’absente” (I have to slip out) in 2008, a show that was more tense, with elements of drama holding together the soft-shoe and tap dance numbers. See Swisster review.

“It was such a jubilatory experience to discover the artificial mechanisms that allow audiences to be enraptured,” says Saire.

The latest event is something different altogether. It starts with a six-foot tall white rabbit throwing up on stage. But don’t take fright, he’s only vomiting the pieces of shiny material used for music hall costumes that he had previously stuffed down his throat.

Je veux bien, photo Mario del Curto

“What lies under the surface of the world of entertainment fascinates me even more,” the choreographer says. “Our vital need for entertainment, for escapism, and the touching fragility of the process.”

He is offering us a metaphor. So when the dancers appear on stage not knowing what is expected of them, staring with wide-eyed innocence at the audience, we’re aware of the spoof, but we’re ready to be taken for a ride.

The dancers start to perform by breaking into steps, using the lime lights, disco balls and stage material as props. They make contact with each other, collide, step away, always keeping busy and always entertaining us.

The stage comes alive not in a way that is ordered and predictable, but in joyful anarchy. The dancers become pranksters, appealing to our joyful sympathy.

Music is the cement that holds it all together and it is clear that Saire has the chaos in complete control.

Fabien Ruf, head of the Lausanne cultural department, says that he “was immensely touched by the show. I loved the mix between nostalgia and causticity, between kitsch and emotion.”

Philippe Saire is the rabbit who sheds his wildlife costume to become the aging diva who attempts to rob the limelight back from his dancers.

It would all be a bit ridiculous, except that Saire pours himself into the dance.

On the obsessively repetitive Cucurrucucu Paloma sung by Caetano Veloso he delivers a solo performance half way between beauty and self-irony.

The dancers stand around in disbelief and embarrassment, not knowing what to do, before they start to drag all the props off the stage and attempt to stop the dancer by putting his jacket back on.

“The theatricality of dance comes with the art of disappearing,” Saire says enigmatically but we understand better what he means now.

In the end the dancers join in lamely. The rabbit/diva gets the last word, as if destiny will always get the upper hand.

Je veux bien, Photo Mario Del Curto

The thrilling thing about this show is that it is not dance. At least not the way we expect it. There is a dose of intense theatricality and humour that will appeal to all audiences.

And what we will remember about the dancers is not only the way they move their bodies, but their faces and the huge array of feelings that their expressions communicate.

The Philippe Saire company receives the backing of the Lausanne, Vaud and Pro Helvetia.

 

Philippe Saire, Portrait by Véronique Botteron

Zurich museum recreates key Picasso exhibition

Pablo Picasso, 1933, photo Man Ray © Man Ray Trust/2010 ProLitteris, Zurich

To celebrate its centenary, Kunsthaus Zurich restages the mythical 1932 retrospective that was to establish Picasso as one of the most radical artists of the 20th century. Originally curated by Picasso himself, the show offers insight into his creative genius and keys to understanding his work. The last major Picasso retrospective took place 30 years ago.

There has not been a major Picasso retrospective since the one that took place in 1980 at MoMA, the New York Museum of Modern Art.

Exhibitions with Picasso’s works are programmed continuously all over the world (see list of recent examples at end), but none of the displays can claim to illustrate the meaningful journey of an artist into his creativity through his own selection of works.

Picasso, his first museum exhibition 1932 at the Kunsthaus in Zurich until January 30, 2011 revives the show that took place at Kunsthaus Zurich in autumn 1932 and in which Picasso played a major curatorial role.

Pablo Picasso, Mandolin and Guitar (Mandoline et guitare), 1924, Oil with sand on canvas, 140,7 x 200,3 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York © 2010 ProLitteris, Zurich

A first version of the exhibition had taken place in Paris in the spring of 1932 at the private Georges Petit gallery.

Piqued by his rivalry with Matisse, who had exposed in the same venue a year before, Picasso selected emblematic pieces from 1899 onwards, which he scattered amongst the large-scale compositions that he had feverishly prepared for the show.

Discovering Picasso’s more recent works, the then director of the Kunsthaus, Wilhelm Wartmann, who had travelled to Paris to see the show, had the foresight to distinguish that Picasso “was in a league of his own” and dropped his original idea of a joint Picasso/Braque/Léger presentation.

“What we have done at the Kunsthaus is a retrospective in retrospective,” curator Tobi Bezzola says of a project that took five years to complete. Because the original catalogue contained no illustrations, he and his collaborators have painstakingly reassembled the exhibition’s puzzle.

Pablo Picasso, Pitcher and Fruit Bowl (Pichet et coupe de fruits), 1931, Oil on canvas , 130,2 x 194,9 cm
Saint Louis Art Museum, Legat Morton D. May © 2010 ProLitteris, Zurich

They were able to identify and locate the 240 works that were included in the original Zurich exhibition and have obtained the loan of more than 100 of them.

Interestingly, the largest number of works in the 1932 exhibition came from a collection in Lausanne belonging to Dr. Gottlieb Friedrich Reber (1880-1959), who was described during a visit to America in 1930 as “without any question the most important collector of modern art in Europe today”.

The timing for the first exhibition was perfect, Bezzola believes, because, coming right after the stock market crash, a number of collectors, including Reber, needed to sell, whilst gallery owners and art dealers needed to collaborate to survive. The status of the Kunsthaus allowed the sale of the works on show.

“The scientific reconstitution of a historically important show,” he indicates, “was the legitimatization to knock on important doors” and secure loans that would have been virtually impossible to obtain otherwise.

But not a single painting was obtained without lengthy negotiations, he points out. More than 40 institutions and countless private collectors have agreed to part with their works during the show, which is exclusive to Zurich and will travel nowhere else.

Installation view, photo © jpg-factory.com

“We toyed with the idea of holding it in the galleries of the Kunsthaus where it originally took place, but this proved to be impossible for reasons of flow and access of visitors and also because it would have meant emptying out our permanent collections.”

Insurance costs, which already represent two thirds of the budget, would have soared even higher.

Because this ruled out the idea of visually recreating the original show, Bezzalo decided on an installation that clearly divides Picasso’s earlier production from his conceptual breakthrough in the late 20s and early 30s. “I really wanted to preserve two distinctive parts to the show,” he indicates.

Visitors first walk into an intimate display of Picasso’s pink and blue periods and Cubist and neo-classical phase that resonate gently against walls painted in the Kunsthaus’s signature green-grey.

Another section is devoted to Picasso’s immense ability as a draughtsman, reminding us that he was not just a painter.

Loves of Jupiter and Semele, from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 1930, Copperplate etching on paper, 22.5 x 17.2 cm
Kunsthaus Zürich, Collection of Prints and Drawings © 2010 ProLitteris, Zurich

The selection of paintings is an instant lesson in art history covering the beginning of the last century, whilst tossing up clues to Picasso’s evolution from one style to the next, particularly the influence of African art on subsequent Cubism.

Then suddenly a wide open space, with glaringly white walls that are fanned out diagonally, introduces visitors to Picasso’s febrile new production leading up to the 1932 exhibition. Following his encounter with the blond Marie-Thérèse Walther who was 27 years younger, the 50-year-old artist entered into a period of explosive creativity.

“I wanted these works to be visible together at a glance,” Bezzola explains, “to allow us to better understand the relationship between them.”

Installation view, photo © FBM Studio Zürich

Picasso, he points out, worked simultaneously in several styles and was constantly experimenting in different mediums. “He would work on a neo-classical composition in the morning, launch into Cubism in the afternoon and finish with Surrealism.”

“This exhibition allows people to see the elements that he chose and combined,” the curator underlines, as well as the variety of techniques in which he experimented, including adding sand to oil paint.

Shocked by the apparent chaos of the artist, the world-famous psychologist and psychotherapist C.G. Jung pronounced the painter a schizophrenic, claiming that his pictures “immediately reveal their alienation from feeling”.

“One has to remember that the flow of information was very different at that time and people were easily confused,” Bezzola points out.

“But by 1932, Picasso had developed most of his formal repertory, so this exhibition can be said to cover the important part of his oeuvre,” he suggests.

Pablo Picasso, Bathers with Beach Ball (Baigneuses au ballon), 1928, Oil on canvas, 15,9 x 21,9 cm
Private collection © 2010 ProLitteris, Zurich

It is also an exhibition of historical importance, since it “may have been one of the first times a living artist was invited to present his works in a museum environment,” the curator says, pointing out that the Zurich Kunsthaus was actually founded as an artist’s association and not a museum.

The concept of presenting contemporary art by a living artist was to lay the foundations for the creation of modern art museums, but only several decades later.

Asked if there were any pieces that he regretted not including in the exhibition, Bezzola mentions the sensuous masterpiece Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, a portrait of Walter that Picasso is said to have painted on a single day in March 1932.

Cecil Beaton, Pablo Picasso, 1933. Courtesy the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s
(not in exhibition)

To be loaned from the Brody estate, where it has been since 1951, the painting was sold one month ago by Christies following the recent decease of Sidney Brody. It sold for more than 106 million US dollars, the highest amount ever paid for a work of art in an auction.

“Traditionally, art collectors love to be involved in the art world,” Bezzola observes, “but I am now encountering for the first time collectors who are not in the least bit interested in art. They are simply investors who are approachable only through their lawyers.”

Major works of art will predictably become more difficult to expose. Combined with mounting insurance costs, exhibitions like the current one at Kunsthaus Zurich may become a rarity.

To gain overall insight into the kaleidoscope mind of a genius, this might be your last chance.

Picasso
Until January 30, 2011

Kunsthaus Zürich
Heimplatz 1
CH–8001 Zurich

Opening times:
Sat/Sun/Tues 10am–6pm
Wed–Fri 10am–8pm
Closed Mondays

Recent examples of how Picasso keeps museums busy and publics flocking through recent partial expos: Picasso: themes and variations (MoMa, New York), Picasso: The Mediterranean Years (Gagosian, London), Klee meets Picasso (Zentrum Klee, Bern), Picasso and the masters (Grand Palais, Paris), Picasso: portrait of soul (Suntory, Tokyo), only a few examples of many more.

Design lab finds creative uses for carbon

Claire Baudrimont presents her carbon inspired glass shapes

 

Exploring the potential of top performance material carbon, star design schools, écal in Lausanne and ENSCI in Paris join forces to combine creativity with functionality. Organized by EPFL-ECAL lab head Nicolas Henchoz, the exhibition Hidden Carbon highlights the successes of the experiment, including the carbon-netted glass vases by Claire Baudrimont.

A joint venture between top design schools, écal (University of art and design Lausanne) and ENSCI (Les Ateliers – Paris Design Institute) comes up with new ideas for the use of carbon, a material that offers the resistance of steel, while being four times lighter.

The seven  projects in the show Hidden Carbon have been selected for their innovative and imaginative uses of carbon.

“The goal of this project is to transform the icon of high technology into a user experience,” explains Nicolas Henchoz, director of the EPFL-ECAL lab, “so that we bring a story, a meaning or emotion into our lives.”

Carbon fibre has been contributing to breaking new records in technological performance in areas as diverse as aeronautics and sport since it was invented 60 years ago.

More recently, Solar Impulse, the plane that aims to go around the world on solar energy only, and Alinghi, the successive giant catamarans that challenge the America’s Cups have been made possible with this material.

“But what we’re looking at,” says Henchoz, “is a new range of developments.” He holds an engineering degree in the science of materials, a field, he observes, in which designers usually lack strong teaching.

Because carbon has such interesting properties, he wanted to allow designers to get their hands on it, although he admits that “it was not easy to bring them together with engineers, because they don’t speak the same language.”

Thirty students piloted by Alexis Georgacopoulos for écal and Jean-François Dingjian for ENSCI – Les Ateliers took up the challenge.

With the assistance of the Laboratory of polymer and composite technology at EPFL and the Suter Swiss composite group in Bern who provided the materials, they were able to experiment with a variety of processes.

Alexis Georgacopoulos, who will become écal’s next director when Pierre Keller retires in July 2011, says that he encouraged the students to “materialize new ideas.”

“I didn’t want them to concentrate on the visual aspect of carbon, but rather to think of integrating it into objects with a different purpose,” he adds.

Carbon can however be difficult to work with as it requires the addition of resins to make carbon fibre (which are toxic) or sandwiching materials to add to its performance properties.

 

The production of several of the prototypes of the selected projects was therefore handed over to “carbon guru” Bertrand Cardis. His company Decision S.A. is behind most of the carbon fibre break-throughs, including  the Solar Impulse and Alinghi ventures.

“A collaboration of this kind is really interesting,” Henchoz observes, “as the limitations of a material can become a new source of creativity for designers.”

“What we are doing here is combining the differences between a scientific and a more artistic approach, rather than attempting to merge them.”

The result is inventive as well as pragmatic: an acoustic amplifier that works without electricity (Pierre Bayol), a mural lamp that uses honeycomb technology for shape and lighting beauty (Raphaëlle Bonamy), a pocket swing that doubles up as a seat that can be improvised wherever there is a tree or beam (Quentin Caille), a table that unfolds like a popup card (Brynjar Sigurdarson).

One of the more spectacular projects, due no doubt to the fact that it is also one of the most aesthetically pleasing, comes out of the dogged inspiration of Claire Baudrimont, who is now in her second and final year of the écal masters programme.

Claire Baudrimont, Transfert, photo Olivier Pasqual – EPFL+ECAL Lab

 

She has used carbon not as the end product, but as a means to obtain gentle textured shapes for blown glass. Using nets of carbon fibre that resist temperatures as high as 1,500 degrees centigrade, she has worked with master glass blower Matteo Gonet to produce vases and light shades that appear to be in a state of semi-liquid.

 

“I wanted to keep an artistic side to my work,” Claire Baudrimont explains, “although never did I imagine that there would be so many variables that I would need to learn to control.”

She worked months on end to produce stands in equally resistant materials and in a variety of shapes to anchor the carbon netting into which the glass is blown.

Materializing ideas into objects, photos courtesy Claire Baudrimont

 

“I drew and drew and drew,” she explains, destroying the idea that improvisation has a part in the development of her project.

“The whole point about design,” Georgacopoulos emphasizes, “is to make objects real.”

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