Kunstmuseum Thun presents its exhibiton program for 2023.
Theo Gerber: Science Fiction
February 4–April 16, 2023
Opening: February 3, 6:30pm
Theo Gerber’s (1928-1997) artworks transport us to amazing and intricate worlds bursting with a seemingly unending profusion of detail and a vast palette of colors, shapes, and patterns.
Gerber, who moved to France in 1962, was a rebel who refused to be constrained by the art establishment or a painterly technique, and he was mostly forgotten in Switzerland. His captivating paintings tell the story of the artist’s ideas, visions, and dreams, and reflect his subjective visions of a free and peaceful society, in which common themes like Thun’s local mountain, the Niesen, show from time to time.
Parallel to this, we will present a solo exhibition of monotypes by Bernese artist Marguerite Saegesser (1922–2011).
Marguerite Saegesser: American Monotypes
February 4–April 16, 2023
Opening: February 3, 6:30pm
Marguerite Saegesser (1922-2011), a Bern-born artist, began her career as a sculptor before moving to the United States in the late 1970s and focusing on printmaking. She had close relationships in the San Francisco Bay Area art scene, including artists like Sam Francis (1923-1994), yet she is still mostly unknown in her home country. Monotype, a printmaking process that creates only one original at a time, became one of Saegesser’s primary forms of expression and is the subject of his first solo museum exhibition. Saegesser’s extremely creative compositions are rendered in an expressive abstract style that draws inspiration from American postwar art.
Aeschlimann Corti Grant
April 29–May 28, 2023
Opening: April 29, 11am
The Bern Art Society bestows the Louise Aeschlimann and Margarete Corti Grant on worthy artists each year. The greatest private grant for visual artists in Switzerland, awarded since 1942, has a yearly budget of CHF 50,000. Artists who have received the sponsorship prize include Balthasar Burkhard, Franz Gertsch, and Bernhard Luginbühl, as well as more recently Peter Aerschmann, Julia Steiner, Livia Di Giovanna, and Zimoun. The Aeschlimann Corti Grant Competition, which is tied to an exhibition, is open to artists who have lived in or are eligible to live in the Canton of Bern for at least one year.
Candidates must be under the age of 40.
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Reena Kallat: Deep River
June 10–September 3, 2023
Opening: June 9, 6:30pm
Reena Saini Kallat (born 1973 in Delhi) is a leading contemporary Indian artist who explores the consequences of national and geographical boundaries and geopolitical border disputes in her multimedia works. Her motifs are usually ambiguous, balancing an element of separation with one of connection in each situation. Rivers designed as both borders and lifelines engage in an interesting conversation with the adjacent River Aare in the show.
The artist’s first solo exhibition in Switzerland is being held at the Kunstmuseum Thun.
Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys: The Circus Motif in Contemporary Art
September 16–December 3, 2023
Opening: September 15, 6:30pm
Since its inception in late-eighteenth-century London, the circus has fascinated audiences. Today, this enchanting location appears to be a relic from a bygone era. Despite this, the meticulous staging of gorgeous illusions amid difficult trials, of success and failure as vital to human existence, has a lot in common with our own current reality.
The worldwide group exhibition features modern artists who use the circus concept to investigate current social issues and question cultural and political norms.
The exhibition is curated by Helen Hirsch, Director of the Kunstmuseum Thun, and Katrin Sperry, Guest Curator.
Cantonale Berne Jura
December 16, 2023–January 21, 2024
Opening: December 16, 11am
Cantonale Berne Jura will present the newest in refreshing, uncompromising, magnificent, ingeniously simple, and intoxicatingly complex art by artists from the cantons of Bern and Jura from December 2023 to January 2024. The Cantonale, which is divided into eleven art institutions, acts as an illuminating platform for contemporary art whose significance extends far beyond the region, highlighting a diverse range of aesthetic viewpoints.
Ticket to a Foreign World
An exhibition about the pleasure of travelling
Extended: March 5–December 1, 2023
Thun Panorama
Hiking and bicycle tours, trips to distant regions, and countryside excursions: Based on paintings from the collection, the exhibition Ticket to a Foreign World examines the Bernese Oberland’s history as a tourist destination. Assuming the panorama picture’s old function as a “travel alternative,” the show traces a path to our globe today, when we have unexpectedly been unable to travel due to the pandemic. The show investigates the concept of travel from both an art-historical and a sociological standpoint, illustrating that creating images that serve as an alternative to an actual voyage was significant not only during Marquart Wocher’s time, but also today.
Works from the Kunstmuseum Thun collection are supplemented by current positions as well as loans from the Alpine Museum Bern.
Kunstmuseum Thun
Hoftstettenstrasse 14
3602 Thun
Switzerland