The Kunstmuseum in Bern (Switzerland) ~ and The Zentrum Paul Klee Receive Our Editor

Written by Ferdinand Zollar Wednesday, 11 April 2012 22:32

Outstanding works by Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Ferdinand Hodler and Meret Oppenheim have made the Museum of Fine Arts Bern an institution with an international reputation and well worth a visit. At the present time, the constantly growing and evolving collection consists of over 3,000 paintings and sculptures as well as 48,000 drawings, prints, photographs, videos and films. The roots of the museum’s history reach back to the revolutionary ideas proliferating in Europe towards the end of the 18th century which, in 1809, led to the founding of the National Art Collection in Bern and, in 1879, to the opening of the first museum building. The Museum of Fine Arts Bern is the oldest art museum in Switzerland with a permanent collection and houses works covering eight centuries, making it not only one of the most important and variegated collections in Switzerland but, due to its substantial collection of works from the classical modern period, also one of international significance. The present building in the Hodlerstrasse was built between 1876 and1879 under the guidance of architect Eugen Stettler. Between 1932 and1936 under the guidance of the architect Karl Indermühle (from the firm of Salvisberg & Brechbühl), the museum was extended. In 1983, the local Bern architects Atelier 5 designed a further extension. Currently the museum are planning yet another expansion, to improve the facilities available for displaying its expanding collection of contemporary art. The museum has close ties to the nearby Paul Klee Center, and hosted the Paul Klee Foundation's collection until they moved to their own, new building. The Paul Klee Cultural Centre, Bern was designed by Ptitzker award winning architect Renzo Piano, and opened in 2005. Around 4,200 of Paul Klee's paintings, watercolours and drawings as well as archives and biographical material, have been brought together at the Centre, which also hosts exhibitions and cultural events. It is currently jointly hosting "Lust and Vice: The Seven Deadly Sins from Dürer to Nauman" with the Kunstmuseum Bern. The exhibition provides a fascinating record of artistic preoccupation with this theme from medieval times to the present day. “Lust and Vice: The Seven Deadly Sins from Dürer to Nauman” also addresses the relevance of the notion of sin in contemporary society and how our culture justifies changes in values. The exhibition is split between the two venues, with pride, avarice, envy and anger at the Kunstmuseum, lust, gluttony and sloth displayed at the Paul Klee Centre. Visitors to Bern should not miss visiting both of these oustanding museums. Visit both museum’s websites : http://www.kunstmuseumbern.ch ; and the Paul Klee Cultural Centre (Zentrum Paul Klee) at: www.zpk.org/

Highlights of the museum’s collection include a unique group of 14th and 15th century Italian paintings featuring works by the Sienese painter Duccio di Buoninsegna. The early modern period is represented by outstanding works of local Berne artists from the late Gothic through to the realism of the 19th Century, including paintings by Niklaus Manuel, Joseph Heintz , Joseph Plepp , Kauw Albrecht and Joseph Werner. The museum also contains a significant collection of works by Albert Anker (often referred to as Switzerland’s “National Painter” for his popular depictions of 19th-century Swiss village life). The growth of modern art from the mid-19th Century onwards is well represented with an international quality collection, including individual works by Manet, Cézanne, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec. Significant groups of works representing cubism, the “Blue Rider” group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (Munich), “Die Brücke” (The Bridge) - Dresden group, Bauhaus and Surrealism are held by the museum and presented in coherent groupings. Local Swiss artists are very well represented with multiple works by Ferdinand Hodler, Cuno Amiet and Giovanni Giacometti from all their creative periods. A major focus for the museum is “outsider art”, and one of world's most prominent representatives, the former Bernese farmhand Wölfli (1864-1930). In conjunction with the Adolf Wolfli Foundation, the museum contains a large collection of his works. The Kunstmuseum Bern is also one of the few public collections in Switzerland, which have long been explicitly collecting and promoting the work of female artists. Artists including; Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Louise Bourgeois, Meret Oppenheim and Marina Abramovic are therefore well represented in the collection. Contemporary works include extensive groups of works by Bernhard Luginbuhl, Franz Gertsch, James Lee Byars, Markus Raetz, Urs Lüthi, Dieter Roth and Sigmar Polke. The Graphic Collection of the Kunstmuseum Bern consists of around 48,000 drawings, prints and photographs. The 16th Century is represented by a large number of prints from various periods including works by Hans Baldung Grien, Hans Sebald Beham, Hans Burgkmair Ae. and Albrecht Dürer. From the 17th Century, the collection contains prints by Jacques Callot, Van Dyck, Rembrandt van Rijn and Hendrik Goltzius. A significant part of the collection is the art of the Bernese minor masters of the 18th Century. These small-scale landscape views and traditional representations of Swiss life helped made the Bernese Oberland (and other parts of Switzerland) famous as early tourist destinations. 19th Century works include the Swiss artists, Ferdinand Hodler, Albert Anker, Karl Stauffer-Bern and Rudolf Friedrich Kurz and international works by of Camille Corot, Edgar Degas, Adolf von Menzel, Hans von Marées and Max Liebermann. Important 20th century artists represented include, Otto Meyer-Amden, Otto Nebel, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Wassily Kandinsky, Louis Moilliet, Pablo Picasso, Andre Masson and Salvador Dali.

Visitors currently are able to enjoy “Chinese Window: Big Draft Shanghai - Contemporary Art from the Sigg Collection”. The latest in a series of exhibitions of work by the Chinese artists from the Uli Sigg collection which unifies more than 1,200 Chinese contemporary art pieces, ranging from canvases to videos, photos and installations. “Big Draft Shanghai” features a number of artists from China’s artistic powerhouse, presenting a broad panorama of Chinese contemporary art including Shi Guorui’s futuristic view of the city with his urban silhouettes of Shanghai, Jin Jiangbo’s focus on the life of a day laborer in an interactive installation, Zhang Qing brings taxis to dance in his video, Jin Feng's "Flying Angels" and Shi Yong evokes the anonymity of urban life with small plaster-of-Paris figures. In contrast, Ni Youyu designs geometrical experimental spaces on canvas in which bizarre landscapes have been inscribed. In conjunction with the exhibition, and also until 6 February, a 2008 video installation with the title “Chinesisch von Vorteil” (Chinese is an Advantage) by the artist couple Sylvie Boisseau and Frank Westermeyer is taking place at the nearby PROGR building. Exploring language barriers, this is an ideal counterpoint to the art on show in the main museum building. The museum is also exhibiting (until 27 February 2011) “Yves Netzhammer. A Refuge for Drawbacks”. Swiss artist Yves Netzhammer’s first large solo exhibition in his native country provides a retrospective of his art, and includes drawings, room installations, murals, and computer-generated videos which fascinate with their corporeal impact and formal clarity while they probe the dark side of our existence. Complementing the Netzhammer exhibition, until the end of 2014, the museum has (on loan from Dr. H.C. Hansjörg) Yves Netzhammer’s monumental installation “The Subjectification of the Repetition. Project B” consists of pulsating images, projections and sound within a room-sized, wedge-shaped construction. The final exhibition currently being held at the Kunstmuseum (until 20 March 2011) is “Don’t Look Now – The Collection of Contemporary Art, Part 1”. This exhibition is the first of a series of themed presentations of works from the collection of the museum, in conjunction with those of the Kunsthalle Bern, Kunst Heute, GegenwART and the Bernische Stiftung für Fotografie, Film und Video. The title is borrowed from Nicolas Roeg’s (1973) film classic with the same title and refers to the central role that visual perception plays in the fine arts and the transformation of corporeal and sensory perception into knowledge. It also ironically refers to the “hidden” nature of much of the museum’s contemporary art collection, which has been in storage or limited display awaiting the new extension to be properly displayed. The starting point for the exhibition is James Lee Bryars’ The Looking Glass (1978), a pane of glass larger than man-size with a viewing hole cut into it at about 1.8 meters from the base.