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Media Release Tu 17.12.2013

17.12.13

Annual Media Conference Our Highlights: Markus Raetz and Augusto Giacometti

In 2014 the Kunstmuseum Bern is presenting a multifarious program, with exhibitions on Markus Raetz and Augusto Giacometti as the big highlights. Additionally we will be showing, to name a few, masterpieces by Swiss artists from the Foundation of Art, Culture and History (SKKG) and, with Bill Viola and Bethan Huws, we will be welcoming two exceptional contemporary artists as our guests.

The new year will commence with a great discovery: for the very first time an exhibition will be devoted to Samuel Hieronymus Grimm (1733 – 1794), who successfully pursued the career of a topographer, illustrator, caricaturist and watercolor painter—largely in England, where he was held in high esteem. As January draws to a close, the Kunstmuseum Bern will be presenting Markus Raetz’s prints in combination with his sculptures. Raetz is one of the leading figures in contemporary art and a key protagonist of the generation of “artists as researchers of perception”. The catalogue raisonné of his prints will be released in conjunction with the exhibition. The catalogue of his print oeuvre and the exhibition are being realized in close cooperation with the artist. Beginning early March, we will be showing for the first time a comprehensive exhibition of some 140 artworks from the Foundation of Art, Culture and History (SKKG) of the Winterthur patron of the arts Bruno Stefanini. This impressive collection boasts great names such as Arnold Böcklin, Ferdinand Hodler, Giovanni Segantini, Cuno Amiet and Félix Vallotton. Under the title Open Sesame! this enormous treasure vault will open up its doors to our visitors and reveal insights into its fascinating jewels. Mid-April we will be welcoming Bill Viola as our guest, one of the most famous representatives of video art in the international art scene. His emotionally charged video works will be showing both at the Kunstmuseum Bern and the Cathedral of Bern. In the 1990s Sun Yuan & Peng Yu attracted a lot of publicity by using human fat that had been obtained from cosmetic clinics as well as animal carcasses in their art. Mid-June the Kunstmuseum Bern is mounting an exhibition of the work of the Chinese artist couple covering all the phases of their mutual career. In the exhibition “Color and I” we will be presenting splendidly colored artworks by Augusto Giacometti, Giovanni Giacometti’s cousin, who in turn was Alberto Giacometti’s father. Color played a pivotal role in Augusto Giacometti’s art throughout—from his early Jugendstil works and his “chromatic fantasies” through to the sumptuously colored still lives of flowers and brilliant views of cities and towns of his late paintings. As fall comes to an end contemporary art will again be our focus: firstly we will be showing the newest and final acquisitions of the KUNST HEUTE Foundation Collection, which were handed over to the Kunstmuseum Bern as a gift in 2003. Additionally, we will be welcoming the Welsh artist Bethan Huws as our guest. Since the late 1990s she has been exploring the work and thought of Marcel Duchamp, the intellectual father of conceptual art. Her art comprises language experiments, drawings, sculptures, photographs, films and performances. And, beginning end of November, the Kunstmuseum Bern is showing the work of the Greek-Swiss artist Nakis Panayotidis who, as a representative of arte povera, uses common everyday materials such as stone, straw or lead. The Kunstmuseum Bern will be mounting sculptures, installations, paintings, drawings and photographs executed by the artist since the early 1970s. Additionally we will focus on contemporary art all year round in the exhibition room of the Kunstmuseum Bern at PROGR. As February draws to a close, the work of the award winner of the Credit Suisse Förderpreis Videokunst will be on view. In 2014, Credit Suisse, together with the Kunstmuseum Bern, will be awarding the incentive prize to young video artists for the third time. 

Contact person: Brigit Bucher, , Tel.: +41 31 328 09 21
Images: Marie Louise Suter, , Tel.: +41 31 328 09 53