Archive Exhibitions 2010

Bianca Brunner
Gap in the Real

Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, October 8 to November 21, 2010

www.biancabrunner.com

With Bianca Brunner’s first solo exhibition the Bündner Kunstmuseum introduces a young artist, whose photographic work stands out in its self-reliance and freshness. As prize winner of the Manor-Kunstpreis Chur Brunner is also awarded the possibility, in addition to the museum presentation, of publishing a book about her work for the first time. The Manor-Kunstpreis is one of the most distinguished prizes awarded young artists in Switzerland and is widely acknowledged accordingly.

Bianca Brunner (*1974 in Chur), after a degree in Graphics and Visual Design in Zürich, got her BFA in photography at the London College of Communication. In 2007 she graduated with an MFA at the Royal College of Art in London. As early as 2005 she was chosen to participate in the highly regarded travelling exhibition ReGeneration. 50 photographers of tomorrow organised by the Musée de l’Elysée. During the short time in which she has been doing her artwork, Brunner has already been included in exhibitions in Great Britain, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Spain, the USA and China. Beside various English prizes (i.e. The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers Prize for Photography, London) Brunner received an award from the Kulturförderung (advancement of culture) Graubünden in Switzerland in 2008.

Bianca Brunner’s photographs show objects and sceneries such as are not encountered in the world, which however must have existed at one time. The photographs are staged and play a subtle game with a decisive feature of this media: its evident nature. Brunner’s pictures moreover captivate by a precision, which extends from the reduced composition to the careful hand proofs and which possesses the authenticity of classical analogue photography. Despite this objectifying reproduction, however, the objects and situations represented are elusive, since they merely refer to reality in an exemplary way. The seemingly flat empty spaces in pictures such as “Sky” turn out to be overexposed, three-dimensional forms; the “Uninhabitable Objects” reminding one of real dwellings prove to be fictitious constructs. However, Brunner’s pictorial inventions are always based on recollections of every-day observations, which the artist traces over long periods of time in process-like trial configurations, and the atmosphere of which she allows to reverberate in her photographs. In this way she creates in her self-contained imageries a suspenseful situation between an objective representational quality and staged construct, between authenticity and fiction as well as between the represented object and its associative potential.

                                                                                          Katharina Ammann

Opening and Award Ceremony
Thursday, October 7, 2010, at 6 pm

Welcoming address: Dr. Beat Stutzer
Introduction: Dr. Katharina Ammann
Presentation of the Manor-Kunstpreis Chur:
Pierre-André Maus

Tour with Bianca Brunner
Friday, October 8, 12:30 pm  

Guided Tours
On Thursdays, October 28, November 18, at 12:30 pm

Concert
Saturday, November 6, at 7:30 pm
Close the Gap – Pieces for viola solo / kammerphilharmonie graubünden

Long Saturday
Saturday, November 13, at 1 pm and 3:30 pm
Short tours with Katharina Ammann

Introduction for Teachers
Wednesday, October 27, from 5 pm to 7 pm

Museum Education Tours
On demand for all school levels, on Wednesdays and Thursdays

Workshops for Children
Atelier I (ages 6 to 8), October 27, from 2 pm to 4 pm
Atelier II (ages 9 to 12), November 3, from 2 pm to 4 pm
Atelier rumantsch, ils 10 da november, da las 14 fin las 16

Publication
Bianca Brunner. Gap in the Real, ed. by Katharina Ammann, with contributions by Katharina Ammann, Brian Dillon and Tan Wälchli, Scheidegger & Spiess, Zürich, 2010, 80 pages, 26 illustrations
CHF 38.- / CHF 30.- for BKV members.

The exhibition and publication were made possible thanks to contributions from:

• Manor AG, Maus Frères SA
• Stanley Thomas Johnson Stiftung
• Kulturförderung der Stadt Chur
• Stiftung Lienhard-Hunger

FOTO SZENE GR
Albert Steiners Erben

Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, June 19 to September 12, 2010

www.fotoszene.gr.ch     exhibition video

The project FOTO SZENE GR of the Bündner Kunstmuseum reflects the rich photographic oeuvre in and from Graubünden, and is conceived as a long-term research project, consisting of a website, exhibitions and a magazine. The first exhibit and the first issue of the magazine are on the topic Albert Steiner’s Heirs.

Albert Steiner’s Heirs as a title for an exhibition on contemporary photography in Graubünden is programmatic and provocative. For as a photographer from Graubünden there is no getting around Albert Steiner (1877-1968), who like no-one else determined the photographic image of the mountain canton. With his landscape photographs between 1910 and 1930 Steiner set a high technical as well as aesthetic standard. To this day the analogue perfection and the documentary approach plays a central role, as the work of Guido Baselgia (*1953), Thomas Popp (*1966) or Stephan Schenk (*1962) prove. Also the concern with landscape remains a dominant theme, although in a highly diverse manner: analytical with Hans Danuser (*1953), surreal with Florio Puenter (*1964) and socio-critical with Jules Spinatsch (*1964). Gaudenz Signorell (*1950), in turn, by his treatment of motive and media, crosses the borderline to painting. As contrast to these established photographers from Graubünden some more recent positions have been chosen: Gaudenz Metzger (*1980) working with performance, and Corinne Rusch (*1973) with staged photography, then Ester Vonplon’s (*1980) associative documentary series or the installations by the artist duo Goran Galic / Gian-Reto Gredig (1976/1977).

The selective review of historic photographer personalities such as Adolphe Braun, Andrea Garbald, Romedo Guler, Elizabeth Main, Emil Meerkämper, Josef Rauch, Albert Steiner amongst others, allows for an analysis of current photography in Graubünden as to similarities and differences and possible lines of tradition. The choice of these photographers is based on interviews with and visits to the archives of the individual artists, who are specifically interested in historical positions. At the centre, however, was not a chronological reconstruction of Graubünden’s photo history, but rather the personal affinities and relatedness to the visual heritage of a specific cultural region. On this basis FOTO SZENE GR also asks the question, how an artistic scene comes into being, what it amounts to and whether one can speak of a photo scene in Graubünden today. For this purpose a website www.fotoszene.gr.ch is being launched, which will serve beyond the exhibition as context data base and information platform for photography in Graubünden.

                                                                    Katharina Ammann

Guido Baselgia, Hans Danuser, Goran Galić / Gian-Reto Gredig, Gaudenz Metzger, Thomas Popp, Florio Puenter, Corinne L. Rusch, Stephan Schenk, Gaudenz Signorell, Jules Spinatsch, Ester Vonplon

Adolphe Braun, Jean Gaberell, Andrea Garbald, Romedo Guler, Carl Anton Lang, Elizabeth Main, Emil Meerkämper, Christian Meisser, Andreas Pedrett, Josef Rauch, Anton Reinhardt, Othmar Rutz, Albert Steiner

Opening
Friday, June 18, at 7 pm

Address Dr. Beat Stutzer
Introduction Dr. Katharina Ammann, Curator/Project Manager

Festina with food and beverages

Panel Discussions
Overestimated Father Figure? – Albert Steiner and Photography from Graubünden
With Guido Baselgia, Peter Pfrunder, Florio Puenter and Jules Spinatsch moderated by Walter Keller
Wednesday, June 23, at 7:15 pm

Art and Commerce? – Photography between Commission Work and Free Art
With Goran Galic/Gian-Reto Gredig, Raymond Meier, and Ester Vonplon, moderated by Patrick Frey
Thursday, September 9, at 7:15 pm

Guided Tours
July 1 and 29, August 5 and 19, September 2
Thursdays, 12:30 – 1:30 pm

Thematic Tours
Art over Lunch. A critique of Florio Puenter’s Lej da Segl, 2009
Thursday, June 24, from 12:30 – 1 pm

A tour with Stephan Schenk and Katharina Ammann with main focus on photo history and technique
Thursday, July 15, from 12:30 – 1 pm

Katharina Ammann talks to Hans Danuser about his work and his discovery of the photographer Andrea Garbald (1877-1958) from the Bergell
Thursday, August 26, from 12:30 – 1:30 pm

Museum Education
Introduction for teachers
August 18, from 5 pm - 7 pm

Click! Photography then and now
Museum education tours for all school levels on request.

Children’s Workshops – Taking photos with the artist Ester Vonplon and the museum educator Alexa Giger
August 25, from 2 pm – 4 pm (6-8 years)
September 8, from 2 pm to 4 pm (9-12 years)
Atelier rumantsch, il 1. da settember, da las 14 fin las 16

Magazine
FOTO SZENE GR. Albert Steiners Erben, ed. by Katharina Ammann, with contributions by Katharina Ammann and Nicole Seeberger, Benteli Verlag, Bern – Sulgen – Zürich, 2010, 80 pages, approx. 154 illustrations, CHF 28.- / CHF 20.- for BKV members.

The exhibition and the publication were made possible thanks to the contributions of:

Alfred Richterich Stiftung

Ars Rhenia - Stiftung zur überregionalen Förderung von Kunst und Kultur

Boner Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur

Willy Muntwyler-Stiftung St. Moritz

Giovanni Giacometti. Colour in Light

Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, March 27 to May 24, 2010

Next to Ferdinand Hodler, Cuno Amiet and Félix Vallotton, Giovanni Giacometti (1868-1933) from Stampa belongs to the leading Swiss artists, who between Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Fauvism absorbed the essential innovations of Modernism and developed them further. A formidable colouristic force emanates from his outstanding work. Although he made fundamental contributions to the renewal of Swiss painting in the early 20^th century and is considered a remarkable personality of international status, nevertheless his art is still frequently underrated.

With over 70 paintings from museums and private ownership the focus is centred entirely on Giovanni Giacometti’s ingenious, vibrating light orchestration. The artist was primarily concerned with rendering and intensifying the light and colour effect, which he achieved by placing brush strokes of unmixed - frequently of complementary - colours beside each other. The vistas onto the mountains and panoramas of the Bergell and the Upper Engadin are mostly bathed in glistening light.

From 1886 on Giovanni Giacometti from Stampa, Gaubünden, attended the arts and crafts college in Munich. While there he got to know Cuno Amiet with whom he maintained a life-long friendship. In 1888 he set off for Paris with Amiet, until a shortage of money forced him to return to the Bergell. Giacometti then got to know Segantini, who became his mentor. In 1900 Giacometti got married and settled in Borgonovo, where his son Alberto was born as the first child of four. Soon Giovanni Giacometti overcame the influence of Segantini due to his preoccupation with contemporary French painters. Through artistic emancipation he found his own style. Upon invitation by the artists of the “Brücke” he exhibited in Dresden in 1908. In 1912 he participated in the exhibition of the Sonderbund in Cologne. The same year Giacometti celebrated a big success at the Kunsthaus in Zürich.

More than ten years after the retrospective at the museums of Winterthur, Lausanne and Chur in 1996/97 Giovanni Giacometti’s work is now presented and seen afresh from a special point of view.

Alongside the exhibition a comprehensive monograph is being published, which explores the artist’s work under the aspect of his handling of light, and which positions it in the neighborhood of his international painting colleagues. More than 150 illustrations and four essays by renowned art critics and art historians set forth the central elements of his life and work.

Opening

Friday, March 26, 2010, 7 pm

Public Tours

On Thurday April 8, 15, 22 and 29, May 6 and 20, at 12.30 – 1.30 pm.

Introduction for Teachers

April 7, 5 pm to 7 pm, registration required

Workshops for Children

Workshop I

For children ages 6-8. April 7, 2 pm to 4 pm

Workshop II

For children ages 9-12. April 14, 2 pm to 4 pm

Atelier rumantsch

19 da matg, da las 14 fin las 16

The exhibition and the publication, in collaboration with the Kunstmuseum Bern, were made possible thanks to the contributions of:

● Graubündner Kantonalbank
● Kulturförderung des Kantons Graubünden

The Forgotten Generation
Anny Vonzun on Her 100th Birthday

Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, January 30 to March 7, 2010

Most artists in the 20^th century, who always remained faithful to figurative art, belong to the so-called forgotten generation. Regardless of the numerous innovations of the avant-garde, who determined the concept of modern art in an ever more rapid pace, the image held by the public for a long time, however, was that representational painting was the “true” Swiss art. But by the 1950s at the latest when the universal language of abstract expressionism caused a general stir, artists working figuratively fell behind and soon were considered antiquated - until they hardly attracted attention anymore and more or less sank into oblivion.

This year Anny Vonzun (1910-1990) could have celebrated her 100^th birthday. On this occasion we are showing a selection of her work: Landscapes, still lives and portraits, which enter into a revealing dialogue with works of her contemporaries (Otto Abt, Maria Bass, Paul Bianchi, Otto Braschler, Joos Hutter, Christian Anton Laely, Gaudenz Lütscher, Paul Martig, Leonhard Meisser, Peter Pfosi, Walter Sautter, Gustav Stettler, Etienne Tach, Ponziano Togni, Johann Wilhelm von Tscharner, Gerold Veraguth, Edgar Vital, Giacomo Zanolari und Rudolf Zender).

Opening
Friday, January 29, 2010, 7 pm

Public Tours
On Thursdays, January 11, and February 18, 12.30 – 1.30 pm

Book Presentation
February 25, 2010, 7 pm
Introduction to the two-volume publication: Anny Vonzun zum 100. Geburtstag / Paarkunst, published by the Stiftung Leonhard Meisser und Anny Vonzun.

Introduction for Teachers
February 3, 5 pm to 7 pm. Registration required

Workshops for Children
Together we look at the exhibition’s landscapes and portraits by the forgotten artists. In the workshop we create our own pictures of this genre.

Workshop I
For children ages 6-8. February 10, 2 pm to 4 pm

Workshop II
For children ages 9-12. February 17, 2 pm to 4 pm

Atelier rumantsch
3 da mars, da las 14 fin las 16

► Stadtgalerie Chur
Anny Vonzun: Aquarelle und Fotografien
An exhibition of the Stiftung Leonhard Meisser und Anny Vonzun

March 6 to April 3, 2010
Opening: Friday, March 5, 5 pm to 6 pm

► Galerie Luciano Fasciati
PAARKUNST (Gabriela Gerber & Lucas Bardill, Arno Hassler und Daniela Keiser, Christine & Irene Hohenbüchler, Huber.Huber, Petra Elena Köhle & Nicolas Vermot Petit-Outhenin, Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger, Wiedemann / Mettler, as guest: Isabelle Krieg)

March 6 to April 17, 2010
Opening: Friday, March 5, 6 pm to 8 pm