LUCERNE.- What is beautiful? An idyllic landscape, a perfect body, a child’s rosy-cheeked face or an abstract colour tone? Is good art beautiful? Does an objective beauty exist at all? Or is it just a matter of taste?
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Sometimes people request in our visitors’ book to show “more beautiful art”. The collection exhibition schön?! outlines a small history of aesthetics with reference to different epochs and styles. What is beautiful for one person, can be repellent for another. What people regard as beautiful often depends on their social, cultural and societal background. Not only is the notion of beauty constantly changing, so too is the relationship between beauty and art. For a long time, art was supposed to teach and adorn through its beauty. With modernism, however, the close relationship between beauty and art is no longer so self-evident. On the contrary, beau- tiful art is suspected of just being appealing rather than profound.
The exhibition does not depict a historical development. Instead, it focuses on different ideas and invites viewers to join in the debate. Each room has been given a heading, such as “idyllic”, “attractive”, “colourful”, “simple”, “eerily beautiful” and “systematic”, and brings together different artistic positions with reference to that particular aspect of beauty. This year the exhibition again presents cases of provenance research that have not yet been fully clarified and, by means of selected works, shows how the respective art works made their way into the collection of the Kunstmuseum Luzern. The Lucerne artist Hubert Hofmann took on the task of creating a colour concept specially tailored for the exhibition, which promises surprises for the viewers.
The “Unlearning Beauty” project is part of our exhibition and, together with viewers, explores how our understanding of beauty is influenced by the media, art and fashion. Which under- standing of beauty is conveyed in the different works of art? Is that ideal still valid today? The concept of “unlearning” is used to critically question and rethink existing structures. In the room with the heading “schön?!” you are invited to discuss and actively unlearn the meaning of beauty.
Curated by Alexandra Blättler
With Cuno Amiet, Albert Anker, August Babberger, Gustave François Barraud, Louis Béroud, Jakob Bill, Max Bill, Arnold Böcklin, James Lee Byars, Alexandre Calame, Antonio Calderara, Raoul Dufy, Hans Emmenegger, Johann Heinrich Füssli, Augusto Giacometti, Giovanni Giacometti, Anton Graff, Leopold Häfliger, Ferdinand Hodler, Shara Hughes, Irma Ineichen, Johannes Itten, Verena Loewensberg, Claude Loewer, Richard Paul Lohse, Jenny Losinger-Ferri, Olivier Mosset, Ugo Rondinone, Nelly Rudin, Hans Schärer, Albrecht Schnider, Sonja Sekula, Chaïm Soutine, Hans Stalder, Johann Gottfried Steffan, Christine Streuli, Félix Vallotton, Ludwig Vogel, Hannes Vogel, Shizuko Yoshikawa, Gilberto Zorio, Robert Zünd, and others; colour concept Hubert Hofmann
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