Category Archives: News

Jürg Stäuble – Art Môtiers 2026

The Art Môtiers exhibition is a unique celebration of contemporary Swiss art. It has been held every 4 to 8 years since 1985, in the enchanting setting of the thousand-year-old village of Môtiers, in the heart of Val-de-Travers. The 2026 edition of Art Môtiers is a continuation of that tradition, but with a whole host of new features. Some forty artists from all over the country have been selected to transform the surrounding countryside once again into a unique open-air art space.

You’ll be able to stroll from exhibit to exhibit while enjoying a pleasant stroll through the village and surrounding forests, filled with stories and legends. The natural beauty of the landscape, combined with the artistic installations, creates an exceptional setting for total immersion.

The exhibition is open to both discerning art lovers and curious novices, as well as families in search of an original and enriching outing, and offers two route options, one of which is accessible to people with reduced mobility.

IN MINOR KEYS 61st International Art Exhibition Biennale Arte, Venice

The 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, In Minor Keys by Koyo Kouoh, – which will run from Saturday 9 May to Sunday 22 November 2026 at the Giardini, the Arsenale and in various locations around Venice. The pre-opening will take place on May 6, 7, and 8, while the awards ceremony and inauguration will be held on Saturday, May 9, 2026.

After the premature passing of Koyo Kouoh in May 2025, with the full support of her family, La Biennale di Venezia decided to carry out her Exhibition, with the purpose of preserving, enhancing and widely disseminating her ideas and the work she pursued with such dedication to the very end. Koyo Kouoh, nominated as the Artistic Director of the Visual Arts Department in November 2024, already developed the curatorial project, defining its theoretical framework, selecting the artists and the artworks, designating the authors of the catalogue, determining the graphic identity of the Exhibition and the architecture of the exhibition spaces, and establishing a dialogue with the artists invited to participate.

In Minor Keys is the title chosen by Koyo Kouoh for the 61st International Art Exhibition, as specified in the curatorial text, which was sent to the President of La Biennale on 8 April 2025. The Exhibition will be realised with the contribution of the team selected by Koyo: Gabe Beckhurst Feijoo, Marie Hélène Pereira and Rasha Salti (advisors); Siddhartha Mitter (editor-in-chief); and Rory Tsapayi (research assistant).

Wiedereröffnung, Museum Langmatt, CH-Baden

Grand reopening following a two-year renovation.

Ceremony and opening receptions for the inaugural exhibitions “Welcome Back – The Collection Returns,” “BiglerWeibel,” “Reto Boller,” “Silvan Wegmann,” and “Schaufenster Archiv – Provenance Research”

Welcome remarks: Martina Bircher, Member of the Aargau Cantonal Government; Benjamin Steiner, Baden City Councilor; Lukas Breunig-Hollinger, President of the Langmatt Foundation
Introductions: Erich Niklaus, architect, on the renovation; Markus Stegmann, Director of the Langmatt Museum, on the exhibitions

 

wohin – woher – womit: Eine partizipative Sammlungsausstellung , Kunst(zeug)haus, CH-Rapperswil

Wann waren Sie das letzte Mal in einem Museum, in dem Ihre Erfahrungen, Geschichten oder Perspektiven sichtbar wurden? Haben Sie sich schon einmal in einer Ausstellung wiedergefunden? Die Ausstellung wohin – woher – womit fragt, wie Räume für Erinnerung, Kunst, Identität und Zugehörigkeit entstehen können.

Engagierte Menschen aus Rapperswil-Jona und Umgebung haben gemeinsam mit dem Team des Kunst(Zeug)Haus an dieser Ausstellung gearbeitet. Sie haben Werke ausgewählt, eigene Perspektiven eingebracht und Inhalte des Vermittlungsprogramms mitentwickelt. Ihre Stimmen prägen die Ausstellung wesentlich. So entsteht ein Ort des Austauschs: zwischen Kunstwerken und Betrachtenden, zwischen Besucher:innen und zwischen unterschiedlichen Erfahrungen und Lebensrealitäten. Bedeutung entsteht im Dialog. Unterschiedliche Perspektiven eröffnen neue Zusammenhänge und weiten unseren Blick.

Mit Werken von ALMA, Vincenzo Baviera, Ueli Berger, Biefer/Zgraggen, Reto Boller, Lis Kocher, Luo Mingjun, Barbara Mühlefluh, Niklaus Rüegg, Verena Sieber-Fuchs, Roman Signer, Paul Stöckli, Studer/van den Berg, Hugo Suter und Martina Vontobel.

Urs Frei. A – Z, Kunstmuseum, CH – St. Gallen

The Kunstmuseum St.Gallen presents a major retrospective of the Swiss artist Urs Frei (1958–2023), who found international success in the 1990s. His radical works, made from everyday building and packaging materials such as wood, metal, cardboard, and plastic, move between painting, sculpture, and object. Urs Frei’s oeuvre stands in a lineage of artists working with humble, provisional materials— an approach that today is experiencing a notable revival among many young artists internationally.

François Morellet 100 per cent, Centre Pompidou, F – Metz

2026 marks the centenary of the birth of François Morellet (1926-2016). To commemorate it, the Centre Pompidou-Metz presents a retrospective in 100 works ranging from 1941 to 2016 — the most comprehensive retrospective to date of François Morellet.

Morellet is unique in that he was both the leading French figure of geometric abstraction and the one who most decisively contributed to destabilising it. Through the selected works, this major retrospective explores the ambivalence between reason and unreason, between the legacy of Francis Picabia and that of Piet Mondrian, whom the artist liked to refer to.

Within the 1,200 square metres of Galerie 3 of the Centre PompidouMetz, the exhibition offers the public the chance to experience this ambivalence through two chronological paths, from Morellet’s early pictorial experiments from the 1940s, rarely shown until now, to his baroque neon works from the 2010s. The first path reveals Morellet’s work within the prevailing rules and the glories of pictorial materialism. The other path focuses on Morellet’s optical irrationality and Neo-Dadaist distance. One of these two aspects alone would have been sufficient to establish Morellet’s historic grandeur. From April 3 to September 28, 2026, the Centre Pompidou-Metz will therefore offer visitors the chance to see the two sides of Morellet’s greatness.

La peinture est la même pour tout le monde, Musée des beaux-arts, CH – La Chaux-de-Fonds

Artiste américaine, Marcia Hafif a essayé de réinventer la peinture. Après un début de carrière proche de l’expressionnisme abstrait, elle s’installe à Rome entre 1961 et 1969. À son arrivée en Italie, elle est marquée par les rues, les églises, la publicité et les panneaux de signalisation. Tous ces éléments lui ont permis de développer un nouveau vocabulaire pictural, ainsi qu’une palette de couleurs vibrantes. Ses tableaux explorent la symétrie et la répétition des formes et des contreformes. Loin de s’enfermer dans une peinture abstraite, coupée de la réalité, le travail de Hafif évoque des images quotidiennes, sans jamais les figer dans une signification unique. Des formes arrondies parcourent ses peintures romaines, évoquant à la fois les courbes de corps féminins et les silhouettes des céramiques étrusques.

De retour à New York au début des années 1970, Hafif fait un constat : l’abstraction semble épuisée. Pour continuer à créer, il lui faut recommencer. Elle se libère de tout ce que la peinture a de subjectif, comme le motif, pour se concentrer sur son essence : les gestes, les pigments, les outils. Ses recherches l’amènent au monochrome, qu’elle considère, non comme une fin, mais comme « un nouveau départ ». Elle consigne alors chacune de ses œuvres dans un Inventaire, où elle répertorie par séries l’ensemble de ses expérimentations avec la matière, les pigments, et les supports de la peinture. En 1978, Olivier Mosset la contacte, ensemble, ils fondent le groupe Radical Painting, rejoint par d’autres peintres partageant la même radicalité.

Les tableaux de Marcia Hafif sont le fruit d’une réflexion intellectuelle : l’artiste utilise la peinture pour expliquer ce qu’est la peinture, comme si cette dernière se définissait elle-même à travers ses propres moyens.

Marcia Hafif est née en 1929 à Pomona en Californie et morte en 2018 à Laguna Beach en Californie.

Painting in Color, Currier Museum of Art, USA-Manchester

Accompanying Spray: Jules Olitski in the 1960s, the exhibition Painting in Color features four contemporary artists whose work continues the tradition of abstraction into the 21st century. Heather Hutchison (b. 1964), Joseph Marioni (1943–2024), Jane Swavely (b. 1959), and John Zurier (b. 1956) explore color, light, scale, and space in artworks that foreground visual perception and invite quiet reflection.

 

 

Impulse Paula – Worpswede-Museen, D – Worpswede

On February 8, 2026, Paula Modersohn-Becker would have turned 150 years old. During her lifetime, the artist sold hardly any of her paintings. It was only in the decades after her death that the art world recognized the magic inherent in her unique style. Today, her paintings are considered milestones of Expressionism. With her work and her life, Paula Modersohn-Becker was both a role model and a source of inspiration. Contemporary artists  are inspired by her.

Art 35 Basel

Art 35 Basel Unlimited

Art 34 Basel

Art 33 Basel

Art 32 Basel

Art Cologne 2000

Art Cologne 1999

Art 30 Basel

Art Cologne 1998

Art 29 Basel

FIAC Paris 1997

Art 28 Basel

Art 27 Basel

Art Cologne 1995

Art 26 Basel

Art Cologne 1994

Art 25 Basel

Four Honest Outlaws – Sala Ray Marioni Gordon

published by Michael Fried for the Yale University Press
In this strongly argued and characteristically original book, Michael Fried considers the work of four contemporary artists: video artist and photographer Anri Sala, sculptor Charles Ray, painter Joseph Marioni, and video artist and intervener in movies Douglas Gordon.
«Four Honest Outlaws» takes its title from a line in a Bob Dylan song, «To live outside the law you must be honest», meaning in this case that each of the four artists has found his own unsanctioned path to extraordinary accomplishment, in part by defying the ordinary norms and expectations of the contemporary art world.
Michael Fried will moderate a symposium «PAINTING NOW: A discussion taking off from the work of Joseph Marioni»,
The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC (USA), December 10, 2011

The Archive in the Worm

Verlag für Moderne Kunst, with essays by Andrés Duprat, Carl Friedrich Schröer and Raimund Stecker.
Published on the occasion of the eightpart transcontinental exhibition in Argentina, Germany and Switzerland.
«Martín Mele lives in a foreign land, it’s uncertain how foreign, how distant or familiar it is. For he has lived abroad for some time, actually forever. …»

Aufsetzpunkt

published by modo Verlag on the occasion of the exhibition at Kunst(Zeug)Haus, Rapperswil-Jona from April 7 until June 19, 2011.
with essays by Invar-Torre Hollhaus and Daniela Hardmeier.