Reading girls have been and remain a sign that a society invests in the education of women and thus seeks to improve their economic and social status. Albert Anker (1831–1910) was not only concerned with the education of children as a politician; as a painter he also often represented girls and young women reading and writing.

Originating at Zeitz MOCAA, the Kunstmuseum Bern is mounting the large scale retrospective of South African artist Tracey Rose (b. 1974). The artist has been a radical voice in the international art world since the mid-1990s. Her works engage with post-colonialism, gender, sexuality, racism and apartheid.

The Kunstmuseum Bern owns an important collection of art from the late Middle Ages to the present. The current presentation of the collection shows a selection of around 190 outstanding works of Swiss an international art from the late 18th to the 21st century.

Kunstmuseum Bern is dedicating the first ever comprehensive posthumous retrospective to the Swiss artist Markus Raetz, who died in 2020. The exhibition is centering on his three-dimensional works and mobiles, some of which have never been seen by the general public before.

Due to great interest, the exhibition is now open on Saturdays and Sundays until 6 PM!

The exhibition presents artists and works from the collection of Kunstmuseum Bern that have rarely been seen by a large public. In dialogue with «masterpieces» of the collection, these forgotten or neglected voices show that the art history and the collection that we think we know by heart is full of unknown stories that wait to be discovered and told.

The Kunstmuseum Bern is showing a major exhibition devoted to Katharina Grosse. It is the first exhibition in Switzerland to focus on Grosse’s studio works. The largeformat, vibrantly coloured paintings from the 1980s until the present clearly show the importance of the works on canvas in the German artist’s oeuvre as a whole.

Taking stock means being accountable. The Kunstmuseum Bern accepted the legacy of Cornelius Gurlitt (1932 – 2014) in November 2014. Since December 2021, around 1600 works of art from the estate of the art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt (1895 – 1956) have also physically arrived at the museum.

The Nabis group, founded in 1888 around the artists Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Félix Vallotton and Édouard Vuillard, symbolically represents the collapse of Impressionism and the beginnings of modern art. The farewell exhibition of the Hahnlower/Jaeggli Collection in the Kunstmuseum Bern shows its most prominent works of the painters of this audacious movement.

The most comprehensive Heidi Bucher retrospective so far in Switzerland is devoted to the Swiss artist’s extensive and diverse complete œuvre. It includes works from all of her central groups of work. These include early and largely unknown design studies from her time as a student, the ‘genderless body sculptures’ called ‘Bodyshells’ from her experimental period in New York and Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s when she worked with Edward Kienholz, among others, as well as the architectural and human latex ‘skinnings’ for which she is best known. 

Bern celebrates the important Swiss artist Jean-Frédéric Schnyder with a hanging of the holdings in the collection of the Kunstmuseum Bern and a solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle Bern. For the exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bern, the artist himself has made a selection of 68 earlier paintings and sculptures and arranged them in an overall installation.

Today Meret Oppenheim is considered the most important Swiss woman artist of the 20th century and the leading representative of surrealism. The transatlantic retrospective Meret Oppenheim. My Exhibition is presenting the artist's outstanding œuvre spanning five decades.

Central to the exhibition is Bern's Tablet of Cebes by Joseph Plepp (1633), a monumental painting from the Kunstmuseum Bern’s holdings. The composition and motifs of Joseph Plepp’s multi-figured panel refer back to an ancient Greek text describing a votive tablet for a temple dedicated to Cronus, describing the path man must follow to a lead a happy life

The Zunft zum Affen is one of the oldest crafts associations in the city of Bern and owns a small but fine collection of what are known as singeries. These comic and satiric genre scenes of monkeys aping human behaviour tell amusing stories while also imparting moral messages to the viewer. The Kunstmuseum Bern is exhibiting these paintings to celebrate the seventh centennial of the Stonemasons’ and Stone Sculptors’ Association or, to use the historical term, Guild.

The sculptor August Gaul (1869–1921) is considered a pioneer of both animal sculpture as an autonomous genre and modern abstraction. His sculptures depict zoo, domesticated and farm animals as beings with individual character and pulsating liveliness. Gaul lived in times of drastic transformation: industrialisation and increasing urbanisation from the end of the 19th century onward led to comprehensive social change, affecting the relationship between humans and animals.

The exhibition allows the public a close look at the Korean Peninsula, divided since 1953. A 250-kilometre border of barbed-wire fences and anti-tank barriers divides Korea into two states which could not be more different from one another. Equally divergent is the art produced simultaneously in the two countries.

The Daros Latin-American Collection is one of the leading collections worldwide of twentieth-century Latin-American art. The exhibition has as its point of departure the tradition of abstract and concrete art in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil since 1945.

In our compilation of works from the collection of contemporary art – the title of the exhibition is taken from a work by the Geneva artist Vidya Gastaldon – we embark on a journey through the history of the most recent art. Always in search of what the artists can tell us about extreme conditions and emotions.

Ernst Kreidolf (1863–1956) remains unforgotten as a painter and book illustrator. He has set new standards for illustrated books since he began publishing in 1898. His illustrations carry us off to the world of fairytales and dreams, where plants play a leading role.

EXTENDED UNTIL 01.11.2020

In collaboration with Haus der Kunst in Munich, the Kunstmuseum Bern is mounting a large-scale exhibition of the work of Ghanaian artist El Anatsui. He is arguably Africa’s most renowned contemporary artist and famous for his large sculptures of recycled bottle caps that decorate whole walls like magnificent tapestries.

EXTENDED until 02.08.2020

This monographic exhibition traces the history of an enormously productive and dynamic woman artist, whose art evolved in the circles – and in the shadow – of artists who shaped decisive narratives of twentieth-century art history.

The Kunstmuseum Bern is showing around 200 works from its collection from the perspective of Sigmund Freud’s text in which he speaks of three major humiliations of the human narcissism in the course of recent history. Alongside masterpieces by Arnold Böcklin, Ferdinand Hodler, Albert Anker, Adolf Wölfli and Félix Vallotton, the extensive exhibition of pieces from the collection also includes works by women artists who have so far received less attention, such as Annie Stebler-Hopf and Clara von Rappard.

Der Verein der Freunde Kunstmuseum Bern wird hundert Jahre alt. Seine Mitglieder fühlen sich dem Museum in besonderer Weise verbunden, sie unterstützen es ideell und materiell. Eines der wichtigsten Ziele des Vereins ist es, die Sammlungserweiterung des Kunstmuseum Bern mitzutragen. Das Jubiläum bietet Anlass, einen Einblick in die Sammlungstätigkeit des Vereins der Freunde zu geben.

The Kunstmuseum Bern is devoting an exhibition to the prominent Swiss artist and Bauhaus master Johannes Itten in 2019, the Bauhaus centenary year. The exhibition sets itself the goal of being the first ever to present this artist’s utopian vision of uniting art and life in an all-embracing way.

Das Kunstmuseum Bern und der Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft im BDI e. V. präsentieren die Preisträger des ars viva-Preises 2019 für Bildende Kunst. Seit 1953 wird der Preis vom Kulturkreis der deutschen Wirtschaft im BDI e. V. jährlich an herausragende junge, in Deutschland lebende KünstlerInnen vergeben. 

Apollo 11 landed on the moon fifty years ago. However, neither Jules Verne’s Barbicane nor Hergé’s Tintin stepped out of the spacecraft but people of flesh and blood. What might have taken the magic out of it was in fact the beginning of new dreams and fantasies. The moon’s power to fascinate us has continued undiminished.

The Genossenschaft Migros Aare has, in various different phases since the end of the 1960s, pursued the target of accruing a collection of works by exceptional artists in the region of Bern. The exhibition showcases pieces that were purchased in the period between 1987 and 1997 by the-then director of the Kunsthalle Bern, Ulrich Loock, for the Migros Bern.

What do I see when I look in the mirror? What does my face reveal in my painting of it? Self-questioning, self-affirmation, self marketing. Ever since artists first began portraying themselves, self-portraits have opened up multifaceted possibilities. And was not the imprint of a hand in prehistoric cave painting ultimately a self-portrait? The portraits chosen for the exhibition reveal a broad spectrum, ranging from the intimacy of drawings to the endless images of reproduction that have conquered the world through prints and photography.

In a comprehensive survey of her oeuvre that represents the key phases of her artistic career, Swiss artist Miriam Cahn shows vibrant works on paper, oil paintings in bewitching colours, monumental sculptures, performative videos, and sketchbooks. The latter have never been on view to the general public before and have been assembled in a unique chronology and in a thematically expansive installation. 

Key art trends over the last three decades – of the impact of the cinematic on all media and the emergence of photography as an art form

Die Ausstellung «The Quiet Eye» zeigt erstmals ausgewählte Farbfotografien von Felicitas Vogler sowie Gemälde und Zeichnungen von Ben Nicholson, die Felicitas Vogler dem Kunstmuseum Bern vermachte.

In his lifetime Ferdinand Hodler was already one of Switzerland’s most renowned painters. After he pursued new avenues and turned away from the art that influenced him in his early years, Hodler evolved his own characteristic style that brought him international fame. The exhibition highlights Hodler’s simple, clear-cut, and effective theory of parallelism.

Fifty years after 1968 the République Géniale – an idea of Robert Filliou’s – was rediscovered. During this time of change, Filliou, a French Fluxus artist, came up with a new concept of art and art training that did not focus on individual talent but on the genius natural to each of us. The Kunstmuseum too is going through a period of redefining itself and is therefore again proclaiming the république géniale.

The Kunstmuseum Bern is presenting a comprehensive retrospective of work by Martha Stettler (1870–1945) for the very first time. She was born in Switzerland and pursued her career as an artist in Paris where she lived to the end. Her work can be essentially classified as late impressionist and she was a famous artist during her lifetime. The exhibition illustrates her significances for Swiss painting over the first quarter of the twentieth century.

In the second part of the exhibition Gurlitt: Status Report, the Kunstmuseum Bern is again mounting a selection of works from the Gurlitt “art trove.” This selection comprises pieces that were seized by the Nazis in their persecution campaigns as well as artworks whose provenance and circumstances of acquisition still can not be conclusively ascertained today.

The Kunstmuseum Bern and the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn are simultaneously presenting samplings of artworks from the Cornelius Gurlitt legacy. The museums are concentrating on different aspects of the collection. The presentations have been embedded in an overall historical context and are based on the latest findings in research on the Gurlitt art trove. This will be the first time ever that the public in general has the chance of viewing this comprehensive collection.

Liquid Reflections is a presentation of highlights from the collection of the Anne-Marie and Victor Loeb-Foundation. Anne-Marie Loeb-Haymann (1916 –1999) and Victor Loeb (1910–1974) belonged to the league of Bern’s more noteworthy collectors. With the exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Bern as incentives and in close consultation with Harald Szeemann, the couple accrued a collection that consisted largely of art from the 1960s and 70s.

Fragmentierung und ungewöhnliche Materialverbindungen sind wesentliche Parameter im plastischen Schaffen von Loredana Sperini. Im Fenster zur Gegenwart zeigt das Kunstmuseum Bern Arbeiten aus unterschiedlichen Werkphasen sowie Leihgaben neuerer Werke, welche dieses für die Künstlerin typische Arrangement wie ein roter Faden miteinander verbindet

This exhibition is continuing on our themed presentations of the contemporary art collection at the Kunstmuseum Bern. Not without a touch of irony, the title alludes to the famous pop song by the British group Queen and underscores how very important performativity is in contemporary art.

„Manuel Burgener baut mit einfachsten Materialien wie gebrauchten Holzlatten oder Spiegelsplitter eine poetische Objekt-Welt und geht dabei stets der Frage nach, wann etwas Etwas ist, was Teil, was Ganzes ist – und wie das Gleichgewicht der Dinge zu halten sei, die dem Sog der Schwerkraft ausgesetzt sind.“ (Konrad Tobler)

The works from the Hahnloser Collection, enhance the Kunstmuseum Bern’s collection with high-quality works of art. This show at the Kunstmuseum Bern will be a highlight of its exhibition program this year.

The Louise Aeschlimann and Margareta Corti Scholarship of the Bernische Kunstgesellschaft BKG is considered one of the leading private sponsoring programs for the visual artists in the Canton of Bern.

Zentrum Paul Klee and Kunstmuseum Bern dedicate their joint exhibition "The Revolution is dead. Long live the Revolution!" to the 100th anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia. It is the only exhibition in the anniversary year that focuses both on the starting point of the revolution – that is, abstraction as an artistic concept and Constructivism′s aesthetic revolution – and on the impact of the revolution on artistic representations of reality and the critical examinition of it.

Ursula Pallas Videoprojektion „Black Flowers“ (2014) zeigt ein Sammlungswerk als Ergänzung zur thematischen Gruppenausstellung „Die Revolution ist tot. Lang lebe die Revolution! Von Malewitsch bis Judd, von Deineka bis Bartana“ (Kunstmuseum Bern und Zentrum Paul Klee). Ihre Videoprojektion ist auf den drei Fenstern des Ausstellungsraumes im PROGR vom April bis Juli zu sehen und nimmt auf die „Blumenrevolutionen“ in Portugal, Georgien, Tunesien, Ukraine und Kirgisien Bezug. Bei jenen Aufständen und gesellschaftlichen Revolten dienten Rosen, Tulpen, Jasmin, Orangenblüten oder Nelken als Symbol.

The Kunstmuseum Bern is exploring the videos, photos, drawings, and objects of the highly diverse oeuvre of Terry Fox (1943–2008) in a solo exhibition. Terry Fox was an American performance, sound, and conceptual artist. He was more what is known as an artists’ artist, that is, an artist who was primarily a big name in artists’ circles during the 70s and 90s.

Samuel Lecocqs «A FUTURISTIC (MOVIE) SET-UP» (2016, HD-Video, Farbe, Ton, 8:18 Min.) ist das Gewinnerwerk des Credit Suisse Förderpreis Videokunst 2017. Die Videoarbeit widmet sich der ewigen Suche nach Utopien und besticht durch die Verschränkung von Fiktion und Realität, Raum und Zeit.

The Kunstmuseum Bern is the oldest fine art museum in Switzerland with a permanent collection. It is among the leading of its kind in Switzerland. The new mounting of the collection over three levels of the museum brings you face to face with the most outstanding masterpieces of the Kunstmuseum Bern’s collection.

Ted Scapa‘s (*1931) life and work presents a universe jam-packed with creativity. He came to fame as a cartoonist and TV host, but is a painter, sculptor, and photograher too. His work is characterized by its wit and vitality, by metamorphosis of the everyday into pictorial inventions pregnant with deeper meaning and a zest for life. He invented a visual language that is remarkable in its simplicity, that is straightforward and easy for everyone to understand. Scapa’s art fascinates because of its directness, spontaneity, and uniqueness. It is like the person who created it: quite a phenomenon.

The treasures of one of the world’s most outstanding and splendid private collections are opening to the public in an exhibition that has hitherto not seen its equal in Switzerland. In a grand-scale presentation, the Kunstmuseum Bern is investigating the collection policy of the Princes of Liechtenstein over many centuries. The exhibition opens up insights into an exceptional and illustrious world that has no equal in Switzerland. We have no equivalent of a “royal collection” here. Rather the nation’s cultural assets are distributed among various cantons and institutions, each pursuing its individual strategies of collecting. The Princely Collections comprise masterpieces of European art of exceptional quality spanning five centuries, and still today these holdings are being constantly augmented with new acquisitions.

Niklaus Manuel is one of the prominent figures in the period of transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern age. He was a painter, statesman, reformer, Swiss mercenary, commander- in-chief, founder of the Manuel dynasty, and many other things as well. Three panels ascribed to his hand have survived as part of the Museum of Fine Arts Berne Collection. They originally belonged to a lost altarpiece of the former Dominican church in Bern, now called Französische Kirche (French church). What actually happens to pictures when their meaning undergoes a radical change? Whereas they were sacred fixtures while housed in a church, at the Museum of Fine Arts Berne they are kept and cared for as the works of an important artist. This small presentation of the collection addresses these topics.

Moshekwa Langas Werk zeichnet sich durch grosse stilistische und technische Vielfalt aus. Gemeinsam ist seinen Werken eine starke sinnliche Präsenz sowie poetische Intensität. Oftmals arbeitet der südafrikanische Künstler mit materialreichen Bildassemblagen oder vielteiligen Installationen, die er gemäss einer traumähnlichen visuellen Logik zusammenstellt.

The Ticinese painter Cesare Lucchini (*1941) has made an internationally acknowledged contribution to abstract-expressionist art since the 1960s. The compositions he invents depend on enigmatic signs and characters, phantomlike manifestations, and color as sensitive agents for touching the emotions. At a practical level, Lucchini views painting as an experimental test arrangement. Between the layers of paint he concretizes his confrontation with Self and his personal investigation of reality. This artist’s oeuvre presents a world packed with pressing issues and is frangibly poetic. The exhibition discusses Lucchini’s work in the context of existential art and, with this in mind, integrates sculptures by artists such as Alberto Giacometti, Robert Müller, and Hans Josephsohn.

Kathrin Affentranger arbeitet vorwiegend mit den Medien Zeichnung, Skulptur und Installation. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit erlangte die Künstlerin mit Skulpturen, welche aus einfachen, meist roh belassenen Materialien wie Holz, Metall oder Papier geometrisch anmutende Formen in den Raum zeichneten. Charakteristisch ist für diese früheren Arbeiten das Moment des Temporären und Prekären: Die Skulpturen ruhen in sich selbst, häufig nur durch das Eigengewicht der aneinander gelehnten Bestandteile stabilisiert oder durch minimale verstrebende Eingriffe fixiert. Je nach Perspektive wirken die Skulpturen zudem immer wieder anders im Raum, die Arbeiten sind somit nie "fertig" und entbehren inhaltlich wie physisch an Beständigkeit.

Challenging the traditional roles assigned to women within Mexican society, for the first time works of the following contemporary Mexican women artists are being exhibited together in Switzerland: Teresa Serrano (*1936), Ximena Cuevas (*1963), Betsabeé Romero (*1963), Teresa Margolles (*1963), Claudia Fernández (*1965), Melanie Smith (*1965), and Maruch Sántiz Gómez (*1975). Their photos, videos, objects and installations, all of which are on loan from the Daros Latinamerica Collection (Zurich), cast a subversive light on the dominant hierarchies of power and the different manifestations of national identity in Mexico.

Während für die Entdeckung neuer Talente der Blick meistens stramm auf den Künstlernachwuchs gerichtet wird, gibt es ebenso immer wieder kaum beachtete Schätze einer reiferen Generation zu heben. Katharina Henkings Werk gehört zu diesen Gärten, die im Verborgenen blühen, obwohl es sich durch stete Experimentierlust und gestalterische Innovation auszeichnet. Das Kunstmuseum Bern zeigt vier neu erworbene Werke, welche unter anderem in Auseinandersetzung mit dem Holzfäller (1910) von Ferdinand Hodler in unserer Sammlung entstanden sind.

In Zusammenarbeit mit dem chinesischen Künstler Ai Weiwei und mit Hilfe der Stiftung GegenwART und ihrem Mäzen Dr. h.c. Hansjörg Wyss konnte das Kunstmuseum Bern zwischen 2006 bis Anfang 2008 sechs Kunstschaffenden einen Atelieraufenthalt in Beijing von je sechs Monaten ermöglichen. Der Maler Christian Vetter war 2007 einer der Stipendiaten und verbrachte die erste Jahreshälfte im für diese Zwecke eingerichteten Wohnatelier. Die im „Fenster zur Gegenwart“ ausgestellten Arbeiten aus der Sammlung der Stiftung GegenwART entstanden während dieser Zeit in Beijing und werden durch neue Malereien ergänzt, die im Schaffen des Künstlers eine vergleichbare Neuorientierung kennzeichnen wie es vormals auch die in China entstandenen Werke taten.

For the very first time, the Museum of Fine Arts Berne is mounting a special exhibition that takes an intensive look at the modern masters collection from the angle of its acquisition history. With its own funds, the museum only purchased a small proportion of the items in the collection, which boasts major works by artists such as Marc Chagall, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Franz Marc, or Pablo Picasso. Indeed, numerous private collectors and further institutions donated artworks to the museum as endowments, bequests, gifts, or permanent loans. A number of the pieces were accrued when the Nazis sorted them out of German museums from 1937 onward. Therefore the exhibition highlights issues such as "degenerate art" or "intellect as a national defense mechanism” in Switzerland.

Stine Eriksens «Choreography # 2» (2015, Full-HD-Video, Farbe, Ton, 7’06’) ist das Gewinnerwerk des Credit Suisse Förderpreis Videokunst 2016. Die Videoarbeit ist der zweite Teil einer Videotrilogie, die die Funktion von Sprache als Mechanismus zur Schaffung von Bedeutung infrage stellt.

Significant portions of Uli Sigg's collection will be on display in a joint exhibition by Kunstmuseum Bern and Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, Switzerland and afterwards will travel in a reduced version to MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art in Vienna, Austria, before substantial parts of the Swiss collector’s holdings move to Hong Kong as a donation. Some 150 recent works from the Sigg and M+ Sigg Collections will be presented in Bern from 19 February until 19 June 2016 and thus reflect today’s China.

The exhibition has been extended until 25.09.2016 at Kunstmuseum Bern

The lost paradise of childhood, willowy youths and a yearning for far-off places: these are the dominant subjects in the rather surreal paintings of the Swiss artist Ricco Wassmer. On the occasion of his centenary birthday, the Kunstmuseum Bern is presenting a comprehensive retrospective of his oeuvre with over 200 loans, many of which the public will be able to view for the very first time.

Silvia Gertsch (b. 1963) paints children and young people while they play, sunbathe or stroll in the streets in her oil-behind-glass paintings. Xerxes Ach’s (b. 1957) abstract color field paintings are devoted to micro-phenomena created by the way light reacts with various types of surfaces. Despite their different modes of expressing themselves in art, both these Bernese artists take recourse to the same motifs: knowledge acquired via the sensations and the transitoriness of life.

Pascal Danz (1961-2015) gehört zu den wichtigsten Malern seiner Generation und hat seine ersten Ausstellungserfahrungen in Bern gesammelt. Seine zugleich sinnenfreudige und konzeptuell forschende Malerei forscht auf einem persönlichen Bildarchiv, das ihm seit 1996 die Malvorlagen gibt und ihm erlaubt, den Erscheinungsformen sowie Rezeptionsbedingungen der Wirklichkeit in der Malerei nachzugehen.

Die Videoarbeiten von Lena Maria Thüring sind intensive Auseinandersetzungen mit soziokulturellen und soziopolitischen Themen unserer Zeit. Ausgangspunkt sind ausgedehnte Gespräche und Interviews mit Menschen, die das Interesse der Künstlerin wecken. Die mündlich überlieferten biographischen Erzählungen thematisieren beispielsweise Familiengeschichten oder das Aufwachsen in Krisengegenden, werden von der Künstlerin jedoch schriftlich verdichtet und neu formuliert. Aus Transkriptionen entstehen so Skripte, die anschliessend meistens von SchauspielerInnen vor der Kamera aufgeführt werden. So findet in mehrfacher Hinsicht ein Übersetzungsprozess statt, mit Hilfe dessen die Erinnerungen an ein individuelles Schicksal gelöst und stattdessen in seiner systemischen Struktur beleuchtet werden.

Das Kunstmuseum Bern verfügt über ein vielfältiges Konvolut an Gemälden des Schweizer Malers Max Buri (1868-1915). Eine kleine Präsentation im Vestibül anlässlich des 100. Todestages gibt Einblick in das Schaffen des Künstlers (bis 1. November 2015).

Das Kunstmuseum Bern besitzt eine grosse Gruppe an Gemälden und Arbeiten auf Papier des Berner Künstlers Peter Stein (1922-2015). Eine kleine, neu eingerichtete Werkpräsentation rückt das vielseitige Schaffen des vor einigen Wochen verstorbenen Malers, Graphikers und Zeichners ins Bewusstsein.

While never taking pictures himself, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864 – 1901) often had himself and his models photographed. Indeed, his photographic eye hardly found an equal among contemporary artists. This is evidenced by his unrelenting portrayals of the Parisian nightclub district as well as the wide-angle perspective he liked to use for his scenes—and not least by his daring compositions. The exhibition juxtaposes the paintings, drawings, lithographs and posters executed by this world-famous artist with contemporary photographs, many of which he used as models for his work.

Denis Savary arbeitet mit unterschiedlichen Medien wie Skulptur, Zeichnung, Film aber auch Performances und Installation. Seine Werke sind häufig eingebunden in komplexe Bezugsysteme unterschiedlicher Referenzen aus der Kunst- und Literaturgeschichte. Denis Savary bedient sich bei Fakten und Fiktionen, webt zugleich Verweise auf eigene, frühere Werke mit ein und konstruiert so aus alten Geschichten neue Realitäten.

Stefan Burger kombiniert in seinen Arbeiten diverse Medien wie Installation, Fotografie, Fotocollage, Video und Skulptur, und hinterfragt so die Präsentationsformen und Produktionsbedingungen von Kunst. Er thematisiert das Verhältnis zwischen dem Künstler als Produzent und dem Kunstwerk als gestalterische Lösung ebenso wie die Beziehung zwischen Kunstwerk und Ausstellungsbesucher.

At latest since romanticism, crystal is a leading source of inspiration for artistic work—either its formal structure serves as a model for design in art or its symbolical value comes into play. Crystal rock is something rare; it is valuable and difficult to mine. Although a material thing of hard, cold stone, crystal radiates a light that is seemly not of this world. The exhibition «Stone of Light: Crystal Visions in Art» looks at how the different art epochs viewed crystal.

The Bernese artist Meret Meyer-Scapa is one of our city’s best-kept secrets. Despite the fact that she had many friends in the dance and art scenes, she always kept her own art a secret. She did not pass any knowledge on to outsiders about the creation, dates, and contents of her pictures, collages, and three-dimensional objects. To date, it was only once possible to persuade her to have her work exhibited. 

A highly original Swiss painter, Max Gubler (1898 – 1973) produced an oeuvre that was strongly informed by a very expressive realism. While Gubler was seen as the «only genius in Swiss painting» until well into the 1960s, he was all but forgotten after being committed to the care of a psychiatric clinic. The works he painted in the last four years of his artistic career were locked away for a long time and are only now open to the public. The Kunstmuseum Bern is organizing the first real retrospective of Max Gubler’s work in response to a significant part of his artistic legacy becoming part of the museum’s collection in 2010.

André Mayrs «Vampyroteuthis» (2014, HD-Video, Farbe, Ton, 8:03 Min.) ist das Gewinnerwerk des Credit Suisse Förderpreis Videokunst 2015. Es handelt sich um einen eigenwilligen Experimentalfilm, der sich an den gleichnamigen philosophischen Essay von Vilém Flusser anlehnt.

Philipp Gassers zweite grosse, «kosmologisch» zu nennende Medien-Installation «1000 Teilchen (beschleunigt)» erfüllt das Gemüt der Besucher im Raum des Kunstmuseum Bern im PROGR mit einer Andachtsstimmung ohnegleichen. Hier wird ein White Cube zur hermetisch abgedunkelten Black Box umgebaut, um gleichzeitig interstellare, lebensweltliche wie subatomare Stimmungsbilder hervorzurufen.

The Greek arte povera artist Nakis Panayotidis was born in 1947 in Athens. He settled in Switzerland in 1973 after studying architecture in Turin (in 1966) and visual arts in Rome (enrolled 1967). Since then he lives and works both in Bern and in Greece—on Serifos Island of the Cyclades.

Gezeigt werden Werke aus der Sammlung von Pavel Büchler (Lou Reed) und Franz Gertsch (Patti Smith) in Zusammenarbeit mit BONE 17 Festival für Aktionskunst in Bern.

(03. - 06.12.2014, Eröffnung: Dienstag, 02.12.2014, 18h)

The Exhibition offers a representative insight into contemporary Swiss artistic creation from the early 1980 through to the present, with its selection of artworks of the collection Kunst Heute Foundation, founded in 1982 and based in Bern. In cooperation with some of Bern’s patrons of the arts, the Foundation set itself the goal to put together an independent collection of recent Swiss art. Until a short while ago, the collection has been constantly expanded by the purchasing committee, comprised of young art mediators and artists. The works selected for the current show investigate what is characteristic for the reality of our lives today, for the contemporary world we call post-modern. 

The project exhibition is devoted to the artistic research carried out by Bethan Huws since 1999 on Marcel Duchamp and that she, since 2007, incorporates in her own artworks and sketches. 

Cécile Wick gehört zu den bedeutenden Künstlerinnen der Schweiz, welche die bildnerischen Möglichkeiten der Fotografie bis heute radikal erweitern und erneuern. Im Fenster zur Gegenwart im PROGR zeigt das Kunstmuseum Bern Werke von Cécile Wick aus der Sammlung.

The comprehensive exhibition concentrates on Augusto Giacometti as a great master of color. In a radio lecture in 1933 he systematically described his thorough investigation of color phenomena. The title of his talk was “Die Farbe und ich” (“Color and I”) is both the motto and leitmotif of the exhibition. The show traces the very original path trod by this important Swiss artist, and in addition draws a comparison to individual works by other artists whose work centered on color: Paul Cézanne, Adolf Hölzel, Johannes Itten, Paul Klee, Josef Albers, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Richard Paul Lohse, Jerry Zeniuk or Raimer Jochims.

In summer 2013, the Kunstmuseum Bern had the honor of receiving a large number of sculptures as a permanent loan from the Zwillenberg Foundation. The artworks are largely smaller sculptures, but include some large pieces such as a young elephant executed by August Gaul (1869–1921).
The exhibition is offering insights into the creations of the Bernese painter Martin Lauterburg (1891-1960). It is being mounted on the occasion of the transferal of the Martin Lauterburg Foundation, which was founded in 1973, to the Kunstmuseum Bern Foundation.

Im Rahmen der Biennale Bern, zeigt das Kunstmuseum Bern im Fenster zur Gegenwart im PROGR, die Videoinstallation How to sleep among wolves I von Luzia Hürzeler

Der 1957 in Tuscon (Arizona) geborene Künstler und Comiczeichner Raymond Pettibon hat ein bildnerisches Universum geschaffen, das den Kern der amerikanischen Kultur auf subversive Weise kommentiert und eine Vielfalt verschiedener Stimmen in sich vereint. Seine hauptsächlich in schwarzer Tusche gefertigten Zeichnungen zeigen in comicartiger Verkürzung aus dem Leben gegriffene Situationen, welche den Alltag als eine Welt der kriminellen Impulse und der missbräuchlichen Machtbeziehungen darstellt. Er mischt ‚high‘ mit ‚low‘ und formuliert mit klaren Konturen, harter Schraffur und düsterem Schattenwurf eine schonungslose Abrechnung mit dem ‚American Way of Life“. Das Kunstmuseum Bern zeigt eine Auswahl der Werke aus eigenen Beständen und konterkariert damit den Beginn der warmen und hellen Jahreszeit.

In 2013 the heirs of Paul Haldemann donated the drawing "Vusli=aana:Vulkan. Gross-Gross-Keiserinn Adolfina" (Vusli=aana:Volcano. Great Great Empress Adolfina ) to the Adolf Wölfli Foundation. Haldemann was the son of the janitor at Waldau Psychiatric Clinic and became personally acquainted with Adolf Wölfli, who gave him the drawing as a present in 1920. In 1924, while he was training to become a teacher, Haldemann gave a talk on Wölfli and his art. His talk and the drawing are shown in the current exhibition for the first time. 

Im Ausstellungsraum des Kunstmuseums Bern im PROGR sind vier Fotografien von Marianne Mueller aus dem Jahr 1998 zu sehen. Dies erlaubt die Begegnung mit einer Künstlerin, welche in den Neunziger Jahren schlagartig für ihre intimen Betrachtungen bekannt wurde. Seit den Neunziger Jahren entstand daraus ein immenses Archiv von Alltagsbildern – Video oder Fotografie –, welche sie mit einem absichtslos umherschweifenden Blick einfing, und diese in wechselnden Ausstellungen oder für Buchprojekte stets neu arrangiert.

Bill Viola (b. 1951 in New York) is generally seen as one of the leading international representatives of video art. For over 30 years he has been working with video tapes, video installations, sound environments, electronic-music performances and TV productions. In 1995 and 2007, Viola’s presentation of his art at the Venice Biennial was highly acclaimed. It therefore comes as a surprise that since his first solo exhibition in 1993 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts Lausanne his work has only been shown in group exhibitions in Switzerland. A coming solo exhibition will change this situation and will be taking place both at the Cathedral of Berne and at the Kunstmuseum Bern.

The draftsman and painter from Winterthur always has a camera with him when he is out and about taking pictures of insignificant locations—of waste land, garden plots and forests between dusk and dawn, when it is raining or snowing. The photographs are mostly blurred. They are predestined to be used for producing hyperrealistic oilpaintings, watercolors and drawings. Consciousness for what the hurried and passing glance first missed results from the slow process of making a drawing of the whole photograph or of a small detail from it. In this way the ambience of the sheets becomes emotionally charged, and internal landscapes, distant memories and a confusion of feelings unfold before our eyes.

Winterthur patron of the arts Bruno Stefanini (*1924) established the Stiftung für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte (Foundation for Art, Culture and History) in 1980. In the 1950s he began purchasing small-format pictures by Robert Zünd. Over the decades Stefanini accumulated an impressive collection of some 8,000 artworks that offers an encyclopaedic overview of the whole spectrum of artistic creation in Switzerland from the 18th to the early 20th century. 

In der dritten Ausgabe des Credit Suisse Förderpreis Videokunst wurde «Stalin’s World» von Nicolas Cilins ausgezeichnet - ein vielschichtiger Video-Essay über den Umgang mit Geschichte und ihren Monumenten im postsowjetischen Litauen.

Markus Raetz, geboren 1941, ist einer der renommiertesten Berner Künstler der Gegenwart und eine zentrale Figur der Generation von „künstlerischen Wahrnehmungsforschern“.

Velimir Ilisevic wurde 1965 in Sisak (ehemals Jugoslawien) geboren und lebt seit 1989 in der Schweiz. Seine Gemälde und Zeichnungen zeigen Gesehenes, Erlebtes und Erinnertes. Doch die ausgeschnittenen Flächen und ausgefransten Flecken lassen den Betrachter im Ungewissen und geben ihm Rätsel auf. Die beiden im Kunstmuseum Bern @ PROGR gezeigten Gemälde wurden 2013 für die Sammlung erworben. Sie werden zusammen mit aktuellen Zeichnungen präsentiert.

Samuel Hieronymus Grimm (1733-1794) is being presented in a comprehensive exhibition for the very first time. He pursued a career as topographer, illustrator, caricaturist and painter of watercolors, acquiring quite a reputation especially in England. 

No major exhibition on the developments of 20th-century sculpture fails to feature Germaine Richier (1902-1959). All in all, she is indeed a highly exceptional artist. Her entire oeuvre is oriented toward humankind and finding appropriate semblances that express humanity. As Germaine Richier once said about her art: “humanity alone counts.” 

Marina Abramović gehört zu den herausragenden und prägenden Performance-Künstlerinnen ihrer Zeit. Anlässlich von BONE 16 zeigt das Kunstmuseum Bern im PROGR Werke von Marina Abramovic aus der Sammlung.

Under the aegis of the Mexican Embassy, the Kunstmuseum Bern is presenting 51 prints and a piece of sculpture that were generously donated by the Mexican Government to the museum as a token of the long-standing friendship and exceptional cooperation between Mexico and Switzerland.

This themed group exhibition is our contribution to the discussion on new role definitions of the male gender, a topic that has long been on the agenda of academia and popular culture. Works by artists of both sexes will address the issue of how contemporary art stages male role models and masculinity, critically scrutinizing the content of the same.

Die Schweizer Künstlerin Luzia Hürzeler macht in Ihren Arbeiten das Flüchtige und Momenthafte zum Thema. So auch in der Videoaktion «Selbstporträt für die Katz» (2006), die im Rahmen einer Sammlungspräsentation im Kunstmuseum Bern @ PROGR zu sehen ist.

The Bernische Kunstgesellschaft BKG (Bern Art Society) played a decisive role in the foundation of the Kunstmuseum Bern, which opened its doors to the public in 1879. Thus, on the occasion of the BKG’s bicentennial, the Kunstmuseum Bern is dedicating an exhibition to this illustrious art society by showing works of AC Scholarship winners from 1942 to 2012. 104 artists were selected for the exhibition, each represented by an artwork that they executed at the time they received the scholarship. In this way the bicenntenial exhibition ultimately offers a comprehensive overview of 70 years of artistic creation in the Canton of Bern.

Die junge Berner Künstlerin Livia Di Giovanna kombiniert einfache Materialien wie Holz mit Filmprojektionen zu verschachtelten Installationen. Eines Ihrer Werke aus der Museumssammlung wird im Ausstellungsraum im PROGR gezeigt.

We are inevitably fascinated by Rudolf Mumprecht’s text images and their powerful effect on us. Words such as “Zeit” (time), “Liebe" (love), “Hoffnung” (hope), or “Einklang” (harmony) stir our senses profoundly. On the occasion of Rudolf Mumprecht’s 95th birthday, the Kunstmuseum Bern is mounting an outstanding exhibition for this internationally renowned Bernese artist.

«Iron and Steel» presents recently executed work series by Paolo Bellini, James Licini, and Josef Maria Odermatt, who are among the leading representatives of today’s art scene specializing in iron and steel sculptures in Switzerland.

Besides flora and foliage, animals with anthropomorphic traits inhabit Ernst Kreidolf’s illustrations. The Kunstmuseum Bern has a rich collection of his drawings of grasshoppers, butterflies, cats, or dogs in its storerooms, and many of them will be shown to the public for the first time in the exhibition «Butterflies’ Ball and Dogs’ Party».

Uriel Orlow ist bekannt für Installationen, welche auf ausgiebigen Recherchen zu spezifischen Orten und Ereignissen basieren. Seine Werke erkunden unterdrückte Erinnerungen und Traumas. So auch das Einkanalvideo «1942 (Poznan)».

When the first symbolist works were produced in 1890, Swiss artists such as Ferdinand Hodler, or Carlos Schwabe played a pivotal role. The show «Myths and Mysteries» is presenting masterpieces of the symbolist epoch over a space of 1000 square meters, with artworks from Switzerland as well as from neighboring European countries.

The Bernische Kunstgesellschaft’s AC Scholarship is the most prestigious private art grant in the Canton of Bern. The exhibition taking place at the Kunstmuseum Bern comprises works submitted by the award winners as well as a selection of works by artists who competed in 2013.

The Swiss photographer, filmmaker, and painter Hannes Schmid was born in 1946 in Zurich. He is one of the great visual narrators of our time. Hannes Schmid is famous since the early 1990s for his iconic staging of the Marlboro cowboys and innovative fashion shots.

Das Kunstmuseum Bern und die Credit Suisse haben am 21. Feburar 2013 zum zweiten Mal den «Credit Suisse Förderpreis Videokunst» vergeben. Das Werk der Preisträgerin Muriel Kunz wird im Kunstmuseum Bern @ PROGR präsentiert.

In the first half of 2013, the space for presenting our collection will be reduced. Our greatest masterpieces, ranging from Duccio di Buoninsegna’s Maestà to Sean Scully’s Grey Wolf, will be hung in groups ordered chronology and thematically.

Aus der Sammlung zeigt das Kunstmuseum Bern @ PROGR eine Serie kleinformatiger Zeichnungen von Michael Günzburger, die in Folge eines Atelieraufenthalts in Indien entstanden sind.

The exhibition will investigate the artistic confrontation between Johannes Itten and Paul Klee on the subject of color. In the process the show will explore related aspects such as color and esoteric notions, aura and harmony of color, color and abstraction, color and nature, and color division.

On the occasion of Otto Nebel’s (1892-1973) 120th birthday, the exhibition will be showing for the first time the entire oeuvre of this artist and author who lived in Bern for many decades.

Der in Brugg geborene Künstler Carlo E. Lischetti (1946–2005) lebte seit 1966 in Bern und war Vieles gleichzeitig: Maler, Schriftsteller, Ak-tionskünstler, Philosoph, Schauspieler, Filmemacher, Performance-künstler und zeitweise Berner Stadtrat (1973–1976).

The exhibition investigates Meret Oppenheim’s legacy and her impact on recent Swiss art in homage to this famous Swiss woman artist, who would have celebrated her hundredth birthday in 2013. At the same time, the show will scrutinize the role of contemporary surrealism.

Karaoke Night ist die Videoarbeit der jungen Berner Künstlerin Quynh Dong. Im Oktober 2012 wird das Werk im Ausstellungsraum des Kunstmuseums Bern im PROGR gezeigt.

«Kapital» ist das Thema der Biennale Bern 2012. Als Teil davon zeigt das Kunstmuseum Bern @ PROGR Werke von Maria Eichhorn und Silke Wagner.

mit Fotografien von
Alexander Jaquemet
Adrian Scheidegger / Thomas Telley

Am Dienstag, 28. August wird im Kunstmuseum Bern das Buch "Walk The Line" zum Kunst-am-Bau-Projekt von Christian Grogg vorgestellt und gleichzeitig eine Ausstellung dazu eröffnet mit Fotoarbeiten, Zeichnungen und der goldenen „Kurve“ als Skulptur. Sie gibt Einblick in das Projekt im und um das Jugendheim Prêles, einem Massnahmenzentrum für männliche Jugendliche zwischen 15 und 22 Jahren. Die Publikation widmet sich der Frage, weshalb und wozu Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Platz finden soll. Eine Frage, die gerade auch in Bezug auf gesellschaftlich abgelegene Situationen von grosser Brisanz und Aktualität ist.

To celebrate Bern artist Herbert Distel’s 70th birthday (b. 1942), the Kunstmuseum Bern is putting together a small homage in a gallery-sized exhibition. In it we plan to give a concentrated overview of his art with works from the collection representing various phases in the artist's creative development. 

Der Credit Suisse Förderpreis Videokunst 2012 wurde in diesem Winter das erste Mal durchgeführt. Der Preis wurde von der Jury an De La Fuente Oscar De Franco (*1977) aus Zürich vergeben.

Antonio Saura (1930-1998) counts as one of the key artists of the 20th century and is one of the leading champions of Spanish painting in his times. We find his work presented in most prominent collections of modern art all over the world. 

In collaboration with Whitechapel Gallery, London, the Kunstmuseum Bern is presenting the first retrospective on Zarina Bhimji, British photographer, filmmaker, and installation artist. Voicing criticism of her times with a gentle lyricism, Bhimji promotes confrontation with the difficult social issues of migration, globalization, and post-colonial history in her work.

In conjunction with the publication of Kotscha Reist’s new monography, the Kunstmuseum Bern is presenting works by the Bernese artist from its own collection together with an additional selection of paintings.

Together with the Hermann Hesse Museum in Montagnola, the Kunstmuseum Bern is presenting the first retrospective of Hermann Hesse’s paintings to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the artist and famous author’s decease.

The Kunstmuseum Bern is showing a retrospective of Irish-American artist Sean Scully (b. 1945), a leading representative of abstract art. The exhibition is a joint production of the Kunstmuseum Bern and Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, and was planned in close collaboration with the artist himself. This enables the Kunstmuseum Bern to provide an overview of Sean Scully’s key paintings from all phases in his creative development. 

As a large-scale project for the centennial anniversary of the Swiss-based international Holcim group, portrait photographer Marco Grob and photographers David Hiepler and Fritz Brunier took pictures of employees and production plants around the World. This laid the foundations for realizing a truly unique artistic investigation. The exhibition will show photographic works of outstanding quality while also documenting how professional commercial photography developed into fine art photography. 

The Adolf Wölfli Foundation was founded by Elka Spoerri (1924-2002). The Foundation administers the estate of the “writer, poet, artist and composer” Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930) and, since its founding in 1975, enjoys guest status at the Museum of Fine Arts Bern. 

The Kunstmuseum Bern is organizing an exhibition that gives fascinating insights into Arina Kowner’s extensive collection of Russian contemporary art. The collection comprises 200 works by 46 artists from the period dating from 1970 to 2008. The museum will be showing pictures by famous Russian nonconformist artists as well as works that were executed after 1989. 

The Kunstmuseum Bern is presenting the largest monographic exhibition of works by Berlinde De Bruyckere (b. 1964) hitherto shown in Europe. The Flemish artist creates deceptively real sculptures and touching drawings of human bodies suffering. The presentation brings them into a dialogue with the works of the German Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach and the Italian film maker Pier Paolo Pasolini.

The Kunstmuseum Bern is presenting an exhibition of Kurt Schwitters’ (1887–1948) art in its manifold forms to the public. The show substantiates the fact that Schwitters goes way beyond being “just” the Merz artist who revolutionized collages by creating pictures using cuttings from newspapers, advertisements, and throwaway images. His works embrace many different styles, ranging from Dada through constructivism to virtually surrealist artistic statements.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Hermann and Margrit Rupf laid the foundations for a collection now seen as one of the leading of its kind for European modern art. Not only the vast number of high-profile artworks makes this collection remarkable but also the fact that Hermann Rupf acquired the majority of them in the same year they were executed. Because a foundation was established in the Kunstmuseum Bern in the 1950s, the collection is open to the public and, right up to the present, being constantly enlarged. The exhibition “Rectangle and Square”. From Picasso to Judd – Rupf Foundation Acquisitions will, for the first time, give a comprehensive view of the acquisitions accumulated by the foundation since it was established. 

Cuno Amiet died on July 6, 1961, aged 93 on the Oschwand in the canton of Bern after having lived an eventful life. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of this versatile artist the Kunstmuseum Bern will provide insights into one of the leading collections of Amiet's work, that is, into Eduard Gerber's private collection. Besides showing the private collection of this connoisseur, the exhibition comprises works from the Kunstmuseum Bern collection as well. The latter represents the artist’s “official” oeuvre, so that, on the whole, the exhibition offers a broad overview of Amiet’s work. 

Les Feuilles mortes (1899) and Les Sources (1900), the Kunstmuseum Bern owns two key works from Ernest Biéler’s (1863-1948) symbolist phase. This artist’s diverse oeuvre is well worth rediscovering. The large and comprehensive retrospective shows not only the artist’s early impressionist work together with his symbolist and realistic artworks, but also his paintings influenced by the Art Nouveau style - the zenith of Biéler's art.

In the first half of the 20th century, Victor Surbek was among the leading Bernese artists who succeeded Ferdinand Hodler. In 2005 the estate’s executers dissolved the Brunnmatt district studio of the artist couple. From a still rich fund of artworks, the Kunstmuseum Bern had the privilege of selecting those it wanted to complete its collection – which hitherto comprised, among other works, the complete oeuvre of Victor Surbek’s prints.

The Retrospective on Martin Ziegelmüller (b. 1935) taking place simultaneously in the Kunstmuseum Bern and in the Kunsthaus Langenthal will be the first comprehensive overview of this Swiss artist’s multifaceted work. In a very palpable way, it presents the development of the artist’s subject matter from the beginning of his career to the present. While the Kunstmuseum Bern focuses on his landscapes and urban panoramas, the Kunsthaus Langenthal shows – besides landscapes depicting rivers – gouaches of working life as well as portraits of friends and acquaintances from the art scene.

The Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung presented 150 artworks from the Kunstmuseum Bern collection titled ... Giacometti, Hodler, Klee … Hosting the Kunstmuseum Bern in Munich from mid-September 2010 to January 2011. This exhibition will be open to the public also in the Kunstmuseum Bern under the title of Back from Munich from April 1 to June 26, 2011.

To celebrate the bicentennial of Chile’s independence, the Swiss Embassy in Santiago invited the Chilean-Swiss artist Ingrid Wildi Merino to organize an exhibition. The outcome, the exhibition project “Dislocacion” – which could already be viewed in Santiago de Chile this fall – will now be also shown in the Kunstmuseum Bern.

Pablo Picasso continually and intensely experimented with the many very different methods of printing, producing masterly results that demonstrate his great facility. Now the Kunstmuseum Bern gives insight into the rich collection of Georges Bloch.

The exhibition Mahjong: Chinese Contemporary Art from the Sigg Collection took place in the Kunstmuseum Bern in 2005. The media - nationally and internationally - was enthusiastic about the show, and, with over 40,000 visitors, it was an overwhelming success. The show presented a broad panorama of Chinese contemporary art as a lucid introduction to this segment of the art world, which hitherto had been relatively unknown in Switzerland. Initiated in 2006, the exhibition series "Chinese Windows" enables further collaboration with Uli and Rita Sigg, giving spectators the opportunity of regularly viewing these collectors' extensive collection.

After several small solo exhibitions in the Helmhaus Zürich (2003) and the Kunsthalle Winterthur (2009), Netzhammer’s works will now be exhibited in the Kunstmuseum Bern. Here previous works will be combined with new creations that were specially produced for this show, making up Yves Netzhammer’s first large-scale solo exhibition in a Swiss fine art museum. 

The Kunstmuseum Bern and the Zentrum Paul Klee devote a comprehensive exhibition to the seven deadly sins, targeting a fitting documentation of artistic preoccupation with this theme from medieval times to the present. The exhibition also addresses the relevance of the notion of sin in contemporary society and how our culture justifies changes in values.

The Kunstmuseum Bern has a manifold conglomeration of Vaclav Pozarek's works at its disposal. This artist emigrated from Czechoslovakia to Switzerland in 1968, where he has since lived in Bern. On the occasion of his 70th birthday, a small selection of works giving insight into his art will be put on show.

Don’t Look Now: The Collection of Contemporary Art, Part 1, is the first of a series of thematic presentations of the collection from the Contemporary Art Departmentin the Kunstmuseum Bern. Such exhibitions are to take place annually.Coquettishly demanding of the public not to look now, this presentation stems from the opulent and internationally focused contemporary art collection of the Kunsthalle Bern, Kunst Heute, GegenwART, the Bernische Stiftung für Fotografie, Film und Video, as well as the Kunstmuseum Bern itself. The exhibits comprise artworks belonging to the foundations and museums as well as permanent loans. 

2010 marks the centenary and commemoration of Albert Anker's death (April 1, 1831 - July 16, 1910). It will begin with festivities in Ins, and the Swiss Post will issue a special stamp as well as Swissmint a gold coin. The Kunstmuseum Bern presents an imposing and large exhibition representative of the multi-facetted oeuvre of this artist who was pivotal to Swiss art.

Albert Anker’s name has long been on Chantal Michel’s list of artists on whom she wishes to focus her artistic work. Not only were his delightful portraits among the very first artworks that she saw as a child, but she also greatly admires the painterly ingenuity of his still lifes. 

In the spring of 2010, the Kunstmuseum Bern will be totally under the ascendancy of the London painter and draftsman Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898). This leading protagonist of late Victorian art – a hitherto largely neglected epoch on the European continent – will be presented in Switzerland for the first time in a large-scale monographic exhibition. Organized in collaboration with the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and its collection of major Pre-Raphaelite works, the show will bring together around one hundred paintings and drawings, furniture and glass windows of this fascinating master of English Symbolism.

Since his startling emergence on the art scene in the 1950s as a wild young Tachist, Rolf Iseli (*1934) has remained one of the best known Swiss artists. This retrospective exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bern surveys the artist's fifty-year-career by means of about one hundred works - large groups of paintings and drawings, sculptures and prints - which Iseli produced in his studio in Berne and in St. Romain in Burgundy.

Subsequent to the "Mahjong" exhibition (2005), efforts were made to organize an artists' exchange with China. As of 2007, with the help of the Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei an apartment-studio was set up in Beijing and made available for six months at a time to young Swiss artists. Over a period of two years, the GegenwART foundation and its patron Dr. h.c. Hansjörg Wyss supported this initiative and financed the stay of five artists/artist-couples there. These included the Geneva artists Marc Bauer, Sharyar Nashat and Pierre-Philippe Freymond, the Zurich artist Christian Vetter and the artist-brothers Cyril and Gregory Chapuisat from Founex. This group exhibition presents the artistic fruits of their exciting experiences, and also includes works by the artist Ana Roldan, who trained in Berne, is resident in Zurich and lived in the studio of the City of Zurich in Kunming for six months in 2008.

The Kunstmuseum Bern is showing, together with the Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, a retrospective of Giovanni Giacometti's painted works. This artist produced paintings that emanate a powerful coloristic force. Around a hundred works of outstanding quality were carefully selected for the exhibition, revealing his brilliant artistic stature.

Although the collection of 19th- and early 20th-century drawings and watercolors by international artists in the Kunstmuseum Bern is not large, it is of exceptionally high quality.

Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591-1666), who came from Cento near Bologna and was called "Il Guercino" by his contemporaries because of his squint, is one of the most important artists of the Italian Baroque era. In the course of his career as an artist, Guercino moved from a dramatic early oeuvre in which a striking chiaroscuro prevailed to the classically serene style of his mature period. His art is therefore a unique combination of the two poles between which Baroque painting in Italy hovered.

Als spezielle Sammlungspräsentation ermöglicht die thematische Auswahl desDirektors einen neuen Einblick in die Schätze des Kunstmuseums Bern. Das Bildder Schweiz in der Kunst des 19. Jahrhunderts steht im Mittelpunkt. Motive wieFolklore und Patriotismus, Souvenirmalerei und pathetische Landschaften, wildeBergwelten und liebliche Seen, geheimnisvolle Nachtszenen und historischeSchauplätze der Eidgenossenschaft ergeben ein vielseitiges Panorama der Schweizwie es noch heute das Touristen-Bild des Landes prägt.

Following the Carracci exhibition in summer 2007, the Kunstmuseum Bern is continuing the revision and presentation of its stocks of old prints with the oeuvre of the Dutch artist Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617).

Elisabeth Steinschneider, eine fiktive Mäzenin und Privatsammlerin aus Berlin, zeigt Teile aus ihrer Kunstsammlung. Zu sehen sind bisher unbekannte oder selten ausgestellte Werke junger, in der Schweiz lebender Künstlerinnen und Künstler: Gemälde, Zeichnungen, Installationen, Audio- und Videoarbeiten, Performances und Objekte.

Peter Radelfinger (*1953, Berne) has focussed almost exclusively on the medium of drawing since the 1980s. He has taken up an independent position in contemporary art which he gained him numerous scholarships and awards.

Ricco Wassmer (1915-1972) is no longer an unknown in Berne. Seven years ago an extensive retrospective exhibition at the Kunstmuseum provided the opportunity to become acquainted with the idealising dream worlds of this almost forgotten outsider, whose work can be located beyond the avant-garde.

Das Louise Aeschlimann und Margareta Corti-Stipendium der Bernischen Kunstgesellschaft ist das bedeutendste private Kunststipendium des Kantons Bern. Seit 1942 werden jährlich (bis 2008: 179) junge Berner Kunstschaffende mit einem Stipendium oder Förderpreis ausgezeichnet. 2009 steht erneut eine Preissumme von insgesamt Fr. 70'000.- zur Verfügung.

The Welsh artist Bethan Huws (*1961) is known mainly for her "Word Vitrines", readymades and objects. In addition to these, she continually produces autonomous works on paper which make up a group of their own.

Tracey Emin (born in 1963) belongs to the group of successful contemporary British artists. Becoming known in the field of Young British Artists (YBA), she gained a degree of notoriety with her uncompromising personal works in which she thematized her sexual past, her lack of schooling as well as her affinity with drugs.

Twelve years after the death of Wilfrid Moser (1914 - 1997) his work is being presented in a retrospective thereby emphasizing his contemporary relevance.

In her first exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts Bern, the new curator of the contemporary department, Kathleen Bühler, will be taking as her theme what is autobiographical in contemporary art as an instrument of self-representation and self-discovery. The exhibition will be showing works from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts Bern and from private collections as well as some works created expressly for the exhibition by young Swiss and international artists.

On the occasion of the 100th birthday of the Bernese artist Emil Zbinden, this retrospective will offer the opportunity to rediscover his work with its socially aware commentary on contemporary issues.

James Lee Byars (*1932 in Detroit , † 1997 in Kairo) was one of the 20th century's most unusual and elusive artist figures. A commuter between America, Japan and Europe, Byars has a particular affinity with Bern. The Kunstmuseum Bern is now devoting a large survey exhibition to this artist.

The American artist Suzan Frecon (*1941) has dedicated herself to the endeavor of painting over the pastfour decades. She feels that the ultimate achievement of her paintings would be the experience that theycould cause to the viewer. The exhibition has been installed together with the artist and is a collaborationwith the Menil Collection in Houston. After having been represented in group exhibitions at the Museum ofFine Arts Bern in 1990 and 1994, Suzan Frecon’s painterly oeuvre of the last ten years is currently shownin a concentrated overview.

Das Kunstmuseum Bern gewährt neue Einblicke in seine Sammlungsbestände. In einer thematischen Präsentation werden Werke unterschiedlicher Epochen miteinander in Dialog gestellt. Zu sehen sind Highlights aus der Sammlung, aber auch viele selten gezeigte Werke. Die Konfrontation von Alt und Neu soll auf unterhaltsame Weise veranschaulichen, wie sich der künstlerische Blick auf verschiedenste Themen verändert hat. Die Ausstellung ist in zehn Kapitel gegliedert und umfasst Malerei, Skulpturen, Zeichnungen, Fotografien und Videoarbeiten.

The Museum of Fine Arts Bern presents one of the most important and extensive Hodler exhibitions with over 150 masterpieces of all the artist's periods. The exhibition is a collaboration of the Museum of Fine Arts Bern and the Museum of Fine Arts Budapest.

Rudolf Mumprecht, painter and etcher, was born 1918 in Basel and grew up in Berne. The Kunstmuseum Bern honors Mumprecht on occaison of his 90. birthday with a presentation of a selection of his works.

Today, Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930) is counted among the important artists of the 20th century. The exhibition presents Wölfli's personal and obsessive universe which is a unique reflection of the world he was excluded from.

The Morgenthaler Collection is of international importance. It comprises roughly 5,000 works by patients from the former cantonal “Waldau lunatic asylum, sanatorium and nursing home”. They were collected by the Bernese psychiatrist Walter Morgenthaler who was assistant medical director in the Waldau clinic from 1913 to 1920.

The Mondstudio Collection has an international reputation as one of the most important collections of contemporary painting. Without following fashionable trends, it collects painting styles from the middle of the 20th century until the present.

On the occasion of Egbert Moehsnang's 80th birthday the Museum of Fine Arts Bern is presenting a selection of his newest works which have never before been exhibited.

Unter dem Titel «Expression und Abstraktion» präsentiert das Kunstmuseum Bern die hochkarätigen Werke der Stiftung Othmar Huber.

Unlike Western modernisms of the 20th century that rejected the narrative in favour of the self-reflective artwork, India has had a strong tradition of figurative, narrative painting that goes back several decades. The exhibition Horn Please attempts to follow the journey of the narrative over three decades, from the 1980s to the present, by tracing certain ‘critical’ moments in Indian art – moments of both assimilation and intervention – through which a particular kind of narrative was constructed.

The 2nd of September, 2007, marks the 150th birthday of Karl Stauffer-Bern. He came to public notice mainly due to the scandalous speculation surrounding his affair with Lydia Welti-Escher, daughter of the Gotthard magnate Alfred Escher. The events, the details of which are still not completely clear today and which were the subject of many books and articles, still overshadow Stauffer-Bern's deserved recognition as a significant artist and excellent portrait painter of the 19th century.

Who has not seen them, these photographs of country people at work and while celebrating, of demonstrating workers, of the persecuted and the afflicted, of the deprived and the marginal, these "Senn pictures", pictures of people in war and crisis that have become legendary? The direct expression and unadorned manner of composition have made Paul Senn's photographs icons of Swiss life.

Ueli Berger (born in 1937 in Bern) represents one of the abiding values in Swiss art. Since the 1970s, he has been present in the most diverse locales with his installations and extremely thought-provoking happenings in public places.

This exhibition, organized in collaboration with the Bündner Art Museum Chur and the Groninger Museum , presents for the first time in such a comprehensive form the intense artistic and human exchange between Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) and a group of younger colleagues during his early years in Davos.

Oscar Wiggli is one of the leading artists of his generation. His contribution to metal sculpture, commencing in the 1950s, is of international significance.

Within the framework of the "Chinese Window", that is, the presentation of some important aspects of the Sigg Collection following on from the very successful exhibition Mahjong in 2005, we will be showing two parallel solo exhibitions from two important painters of the middle generation.

The Museum of Fine Arts Bern has been following the work of Louise Bourgeois for fifteen years in the form of exhibitions and regular purchases of her works. The main focus of the  current exhibition in the Kabinett is the newly acquired collection of graphics Fugue (2003 - 2005).

No one was more surprised than Gao himself when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in the year 2000 for his complete works.

Violence and death are omnipresent in the media, yet our society avoids directcontact with dead people. The corpse has been definitively removed from ourfield of vision and replaced by a new system of rituals and symbols intended tohelp us deal with the finiteness of human existence. The skull, for example, hasbeen transformed from a subcultural emblem to a chic mainstream fashion accessory;the American television production Six Feet Under featuring the family Fisher and their funeral parlour in Pasadena has become a very popular cult series, also in Europe; or Corpse Bride by Tim Burton reveals a truly amusing life after death.

Ernst Kreidolf (1863–1956) is known, not only in Switzerland, as the creator of successful and still-popular picture books such as “Blumen-Märchen”, “Die Wiesenzwerge”, “Sommervögel”, “Lenzgesind” and “Ein Wintermärchen”. The popularity of the picture book illustrator still doggedly disguises the fact that Ernst Kreidolf was first and foremost a painter and graphic artist and always regarded himself as such.

Meret Oppenheim (1913-1985), once scandalous muse, mysterious model and eternal myth of the surrealists, was one of the most unconventional and far-sighted artists whose creative oeuvre – painting, sculpture, poetry, drawings and design objects – represents an extremely significant contribution to the art of the 20th century.

The topic is travelling with art: Travelling to distant places (Marianne Müller, Ian Anüll, Mauricio Dias/Walter Riedweg, Samuel Herzog/Judith Albert), travelling in familiar spheres that disclose unfamiliar perspectives (Judith Albert, Fabrice Gygi, Yan Duyvendak, Monica Studer/Christoph v.d. Berg), travelling through inner worlds (Judith Albert, Claudia & Julia Müller, Pierre Vadi). At the same time, “while travelling”, a collection is to be shown that does not wish to be presented within the cube of the museum box, but which rather wants to present new points of view from various perspectives within as well as outside the walls of the museum.

Twenty-two years ago, Serge Spitzer was inspired by the entrance stairway of the Museum of Fine Arts Bern to an installation (“Stationen”, May 18 - July 8, 1984) which stimulated a whole new experience of spatiality and  borders. The way he questions reality without offering answers but beckoning instead towards discoveries and irritants is stimulating, and appropriate to the respective context.Therefore nothing has changed with regard to his intention and hope of being able to show what is everyday, apparently recognized and well-known in a new, subversive light in order to awaken new processes of perception and thought. The staircase of the museum shows itself in a new perceptual dimension, buoyant and full of movement.

Cécile Wick (born 1954) is among the most important Swiss artists of the middle generation and represents a quiet but persistent voice in contemporary photographic art. The exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts Bern is dedicated to a so far little-known aspect of Cécile Wick’s work. It offers a comprehensive overview of the print works created in the last ten years.

Cet artiste américain s’est fait remarquer ces dernières années par des projets nés de la rencontre paradoxale entre grandeur conceptuelle et caractère non-spectaculaire.

The very successful exhibition "Mahjong. Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection" (2005) presented by the Museum of Fine Arts Bern offered a panoramic view of contemporary Chinese art. As of this year, Uli and Rita Sigg are making further works from their collection available for an annual" Window on China" in the museum.

Eine neue Installation von Natsuko Tamba Wyder im Kunstmuseum Bern.

Bilder aus dem winterlichen Island

Uli Sigg has been following the evolution of contemporary Chinese art from its beginnings in 1979 and, together with his wife Rita, has been the first to collect Chinese contemporary art in a systematic way since the 1990s.