The Kunst Heute Foundation accrued a
top-notch collection of Swiss contemporary art over a period from 1982 to 2013.
Marianne Gerny initiated the Bern-based Foundation in 1982. Cooperating with a
number of Bern’s
patrons of the arts, her goal was to put together an independent collection of recent
Swiss art. It was being constantly expanded until only a short while ago
through a purchasing committee comprised of young art mediators and artists. In
2003, the entire collection of the Kunst Heute Foundation was handed over to
the Kunstmuseum Bern as a gift, boasting at the time some 300 artworks, groups
of works and series from prominent Swiss artists. The donation included works acquired by
the Foundation in the ensuing years too. After over thirty years of commitment,
it ceased its activities at the close of 2013.
The exhibition is offering a
representative insight into contemporary Swiss artistic creation from the early
1980s through to the present. 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. Thus the artworks of the 1980s echo the
legacy of antecedent conceptual currents, adopting a self-referential approach
and investigating artistic media by means intrinsic to art. In contrast, those
from the mid-1990s onwards increasingly turn to exploring the complex interrelationships
of the realities of life in an ever-expanding globalized world. They direct
their focus outwards onto the world, so to speak; but introspection is also at
play as they inquire into the situation of self and existence.
With its selection of artworks, the
exhibition takes up the thread of the previous presentation of the collection
of the Kunst Heute Foundation, which was mounted at the Argauer Kunsthaus in 1995.
Basically and with only a few exceptions, the current show consists of an
overview of the new acquisitions made since then together with pieces that have not been exhibited yet. The choice of
works is subdivided into four separate sections, with each of them examining humankind’s
close-knit enmeshment with the world from a different perspective. Following the exhibitions
Don’t Look Now (2010) and Meret’s Sparks (2012), this show is the third of a series
of themed presentations taking place on a regular basis and organized by the Contemporary Art Department
at the Kunstmuseum Bern. A comprehensive catalogue will be published by Kerber
Verlag to accompany the exhibition.
With works by: Judith Albert, Ian Anüll, John M Armleder, Katia Bassanini, Miriam Cahn, Mauricio Dias & Walter Riedweg, Christoph Draeger, Yan Duyvendak, Pierre André Ferrand, Fischli / Weiss, Florian Germann, Alex Hanimann, Thomas Hirschhorn, Christian Marclay, Luc Mattenberger, Claudio Moser, Marco Poloni, David Renggli, Pipilotti Rist, Roman Signer, Loredana Sperini, Studer / van den Berg, Matteo Terzaghi & Marco Zürcher, Bernard Voïta
