calendario eventi  :: 

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6/5/2010

Two exhibitions

Kunstmuseum Bern, Bern

Albert Anker
Beautiful World. On the Centenary of His Death

Curator: Therese Bhattacharya-Stettler

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 is organizing an imposing and large exhibition representative of the multi-facetted oeuvre of this artist who was pivotal to Swiss art.

The centenary exhibition in the Kunstmuseum Bern will present all the creative phases in the artist's development, the different subject matter he selected, and the genres he worked in: paintings, drawings, watercolors, and faiences. A trigger for this exhibition was the immensely popular show featuring Anker, which was organized by the Kunstmuseum Bern in 2007-2008 for four Japanese Museums.

The exhibition will take up several characteristic themes in Anker’s work:

Anker and his village
Ins, a village in Seeland, was his hometown. It underwent extensive development in the 19th century. He grew up and lived there for many years – even if he preferred to spend the winter months in Paris – and finally died there as well. All his life he actively participated in village life. He knew all the inhabitants, and its impact left impressions that we find reflected in his artwork. Only rarely did he depict working grown-ups. Very often he recorded unspectacular moments in the unencumbered communal life of the different generations in the village community.

The different worlds of children
Anker was well-acquainted with the education system and for many years worked as secretary for the Ins school commission. As a painter he witnessed the social changes of his times. His paintings reflect the developments of the school and education system in Switzerland. Anker was committed to the ideals impacting the Swiss education system, which was then taking shape, and in his work conveyed the new understanding – at the time – of raising children and of education. He regarded learning by play as equally important. In the 19th century, hardly another painter before or after him had focused so intensively on the motif of playing children.

Portraits
Anker’s portraiture reveals a pronounced desire for individualization. In addition to rendering middle-class portraits on commission, we find among Anker’s works a much greater number of portraits depicting people from all generations and in their many facets as he found them in his rural everyday life. Within European art of the 19th century, Anker's paintings of children are unique: He comprehended children as little personalities independent of the roles played by their social class as well as of the roles of age and sex.

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Chantal Michel – Honey, Milk And First Violets
A Confrontation with Albert Anker

Curator: Kathleen Bühler

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.

On the occasion of the exhibition Albert Anker: Beautiful World. On the Centenary of his Death in the Kunstmuseum Bern, Chantal Michel finally has the opportunity to conceive an extensive artistic response to the work of this exceptional Swiss painter and draftsman. Born in 1968 in Bern, Michel, a photo, performance, and video artist, will stage in a separate, own room the results of her personal confrontation with Anker’s world of imagery within the centenary exhibition. She faces the challenge of articulating an adequate contemporary response to the old master of Swiss art history who had largely committed himself to idealized notions.

The intervention in the Kunstmuseum Bern is the continuation of Chantal Michel's work on Albert Anker, presented from June onwards in Schloss Kiesen, her current living quarters, studio and exhibition space.

Image: Chantal Michel, Videostills aus Honig Milch und erste Veilchen (2010). Videoinstallation Courtesy the artist.

Press Relations Officer: Ruth Gilgen Hamisultane, T +41 31 328 09 19, ruth.gilgen@kunstmuseumbern.ch
Media: Brigit Bucher, T +41 31 328 09 21, brigit.bucher@kunstmuseumbern.ch

Opening: Thursday, May 6 2010, 6:30 pm

Kunstmuseum Bern
Hodlerstrasse 8-12, Bern
Open: Tuesday 10 - 21h Wednesday to Sunday 10 - 17h Mondays closed
Opening Hours: Monday closed / Tuesday 10h-21h / Wednesday - Sunday 10h-17h.
From May 20, Thursday 10h - 21h.
Holidays: Ascension 13.5.2010, 10h - 17h; Pentecoste 23./24.5.2010, 10h-17h

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