Exhibition programme preview 2023

Theo Gerber: Science Fiction
February 4–April 16, 2023
Opening: February 3, 6:30pm

The artworks of Thun native Theo Gerber (1928–1997) transport us to fantastic and complex worlds bursting with a seemingly endless profusion of detail and a diverse array of colours, shapes and motifs. Making his home in France after 1962, Gerber was a rebel who refused to be reined in by the art system or a painterly style and who remained largely unknown in Switzerland. His arresting paintings tell of the artist’s ideals, visions and dreams, and reflect his subjective imaginings of a free and peaceful world, in whose landscapes familiar motifs such as Thun’s local mountain, the Niesen, appear from time to time.

In parallel we will be showing a solo exhibition of monotypes by the Bernese artist Marguerite Saegesser (1922–2011).

Marguerite Saegesser: American Monotypes
February 4–April 16, 2023
Opening: February 3, 6:30pm

Initially focusing on sculpture, Bern-born artist Marguerite Saegesser (1922–2011) took up printmaking in the late 1970s after relocating to the United States. She had close contacts in the San Francisco Bay Area art scene, including artists such as Sam Francis (1923–1994), but she has remained largely unknown in her native country until today. Monotype, a printmaking process that produces only one original at a time, became one of Saegesser’s central means of expression and is the focus of this first solo exhibition at a museum. Rendered in an expressive abstract style that takes its cue from American post-war art, Saegesser’s highly original compositions manifest a marked flair for colour.

Aeschlimann Corti Grant
April 29–May 28, 2023
Opening: April 29, 11am

Every year, the Bern Art Society awards the Louise Aeschlimann and Margarete Corti Grant to deserving artists. The largest private grant for visual artists in Switzerland, awarded since 1942, has an annual sum of CHF 50,000 at its disposal. Winners of the sponsorship award include artists such as Balthasar Burkhard, Franz Gertsch, and Bernhard Luginbühl, and more recently Peter Aerschmann, Julia Steiner, Livia Di Giovanna and Zimoun. The Aeschlimann Corti Grant Competition, which is linked to an exhibition, is open to artists who have been residents of the Canton of Bern for at least one year or who are entitled to reside there.
Candidates must be aged 40 or younger.

Reena Kallat: Deep River
June 10–September 3, 2023
Opening: June 9, 6:30pm

Reena Saini Kallat (b. 1973 Delhi), one of today’s premier Indian artists, deals in her multimedia works with national and geographical boundaries and geopolitical border conflicts, examining the implications for the people affected and for their environment. Her motifs are always ambiguous, juxtaposing in each case an element of separation with one of connection. In the exhibition, rivers conceived as both boundaries and lifelines enter into an exciting dialogue with the local River Aare nearby the museum.

The Kunstmuseum Thun is hosting the artist’s first solo exhibition in Switzerland.

Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys: The Circus Motif in Contemporary Art 
September 16–December 3, 2023
Opening: September 15, 6:30pm

The circus has captivated audiences ever since its early days in late eighteenth-century London. Today, this magical setting seems more like a relic from bygone times. And yet the elaborate staging of beautiful illusions alongside tough struggles, of success and failure as integral to human existence, has much in common with our own present-day reality.
The international group exhibition presents contemporary artists who take up the motif of the circus in order to examine current social issues and interrogate cultural and political structures.

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

From December 2023 to January 2024, the Cantonale Berne Jura will be presenting the latest in refreshing, uncompromising, marvellous, ingeniously simple and intoxicatingly complex art by artists from the cantons of Bern and Jura. Distributed between eleven art institutions, the Cantonale serves as an illuminating platform for contemporary art whose significance reaches far beyond the region, highlighting a broad spectrum of artistic positions.

Ticket to a Foreign World
An exhibition about the pleasure of travelling
Extended: March 5–December 1, 2023
Thun Panorama

Hiking and biking tours, far-off lands and excursions to the countryside: The exhibition Ticket to a Foreign World looks at the Bernese Oberland’s history as a tourist region based on works from the collection. Assuming the panorama picture’s former function as a “travel substitute”, the show traces a trajectory to our world today, when we have unexpectedly had to make do without travel during the pandemic. The exhibition explores from both an art-historical and sociological perspective the meaning travel has for us, demonstrating that producing images that serve as an alternative to an actual journey was relevant not only in Marquart Wocher’s era but still plays an important role today.

Works from the Kunstmuseum Thun collection are supplemented by current positions as well as loans from the Alpine Museum Bern.