Kunsthaus Zug presents soul spaces arranged in multiple layers

Almost 100 years ago, the visual arts experienced a turning point when the previously prevailing Realism came face-to-face with a completely new and unusual means of expression. Turning away from the rendering of the visible and tangible, artists began to depict the subconscious and the unconscious in the interplay between dream and reality. Absurd, grotesque, abstract: the psyche manifested itself figuratively, and new knowledge and experience were drawn from it – quite separate from the previous norms of art. Fantasists such as Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, René Magritte or Joan Miró gave surrealism an unprecedented boost at an international level. Paris, for example, became one of the melting pots of the new flow.

And Switzerland? How and in what form - and above all through which representatives – did the movement take root here? The Kunsthaus Zug focuses on this topic in its current exhibition "Fantastisch Surreal (Fantastically Surreal)". And also takes a look back at the beginnings of the Zug Kunstgesellschaft (Arts Society) when, at the end of the 1970s, the question arose as to what the young institution should focus on in its collection in order to stand out from everything that already existed, and to occupy a niche in Swiss culture. The decision to concentrate on the solitary and idiosyncratic flow of the surreal was the path towards an independent and unmistakable profile. The surrealism of the steadily growing and carefully structured collection has been a major component of this, which is represented on this scale for the first time by the exhibition that starts today.

The Kunsthaus Zug presents the most important Swiss representatives of surrealism, whereby metallic cantilever constructions provoke new perspectives.
 

One of the earliest, and at the same time most remarkable exhibits of Swiss surrealism in the Kunsthaus Zug are the coloured pencil works by Adolf Wölfli, in which he manifested his view of the world from a mental hospital – this has been classified in a figurative sense as "sculpture of the mentally ill". Gloomy compositions by Friedrich Kuhn, Walter Kurt Wiemken or those of the Lucerne surrealist Max von Moos - including an early work acquired in 2016 - on the other hand, peep into completely different kinds of soul spaces, which are sometimes characterised by the dark premonitions of the interwar period. The provocative creations by Hans Schärer, which are close to Art Brut, stand in a completely different light, however.

With Meret Oppenheim and Kurt Seligmann, the exhibition will display works by two of the few Swiss exponents who were an active part of the Parisian surrealism. Works by Martin Disler, Miriam Cahn, Josephine Troller, Paul Klee, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Eva Wipf, Philipp Schibig and a large number of other representatives from the history of Swiss and international surrealism are hung in the rooms of the Kunsthaus. In this context, several exhibits from the seemingly inexhaustible collection can be seen publicly for the first time, establishing unexpected relationships with one another, and opening up completely new perspectives on the growing collection.

A special innovation within the “Fantastic Surreal” exhibition is the way it is presented in one of the rooms, using specially made, cantilevered metal arms. Selected paintings move into the room at different heights and angles, provoking unusual perceptions and interactions between the object and the viewer.

Described  as an “exhibition within the exhibition”, a whole room thematises the historic “Le Surréalisme” exhibition in Paris in 1947, which was initiated by André Breton, Marcel Duchamp and Friedrich Kiesler. The latter had been summoned to the Maeght Gallery as the designer and mediator of the exhibition in Paris. The Austrian-American architect and artist Kiesler designed Peggy Guggenheim's New York gallery five years earlier, and developed metal cantilevers as part of this exhibition, which are now also being employed by the Kunsthaus for the first time, and can thereby be understood as a reminder of Kiesler’s work.

The Paris exhibition of 1947 is recreated in the Kunsthaus Zug using Kiesler's original designs and a large number of original photographs by several photo artists. "Le Surréalisme" included works from more than 110 artists from 25 countries, under the motto "New Myths". The photographs are the windows that make the individual rooms of the Galerie Maegth tangible. They themselves were part of the artistic concept, which was considered to be unprecedented at the time.

The Kiesler presentation of that 1947 artistic spectacle is shown here for the first time outside of Vienna. It is a cooperation between the Kunsthaus Zug and the Friedrich and Lilian Kiesler Private Foundation in Vienna, and is also the first exhibition in Switzerland that is explicitly dedicated to Friedrich Kiesler.

Note
"Fantastically Surreal" at the Kunsthaus Zug from February 16th to May 24th. www.kunsthauszug.ch