CAMBIO
New Additions to the Collection
5 December 2020 – 16 May 2021
Karin Karinna Bühler’s (*1974, Herisau) sculpture CAMBIO, which was created specifically for the Arte Castasegna exhibition project in 2018 and became the leitmotif of the exhibition, was donated to the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen in 2020 by the Lienhard Foundation. The latest presentation of works from the collection at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen takes its title from this brilliant work. Made of polished chrome steel, the sculpture literally depicts change as well as the fact that the surroundings, including the viewer, are constantly reflected in it. To return the sculpture from Castasegna, the artist attached it to the roof of a delivery truck and drove back to Trogen. She describes the trip as “an odyssey due to the circumstances—the snowfall in the Alps meant I had to travel through Italy.” CAMBIO thus reflected many new landscapes and became the subject of the photo series CAMBIO ON THE ROAD, which is on view at the end of the exhibition.
The board of trustees of the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen decided not to wait for a thematically or chronologically fitting context to present the new acquisitions and donations, and instead to regularly create an exhibition out of the richness of these works. The donated works thus share a common denominator under the title Cambio, which forms the context in which they will be exhibited for the first time at the museum over the next five months. The rooms on the north side of the ground floor feature works that have been donated to the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen in recent years or that the Kunstverein St. Gallen and Kunstmuseum St. Gallen were able to acquire.
The exhibition begins with abstract formulations that initially seem devoid of all figuration and follows the traces of a painting that then allows for figuration in a basically abstract painting. Dan Christensen (*1942, Lexington, Nebraska; †2007, East Hampton, New York), Henry Codax (active since 2011), Raoul De Keyser (*1930, †2012, Deinze), Olivier Mosset (*1944, Bern), Albert Oehlen (*1954, Krefeld), and Matthias Zinn (*1964, Tegernsee) are cornerstones of this tradition of painting. It culminates in a monumental landscape, two large-scale drawings, and a sculpture by Per Kirkeby (*1938, †2018, Copenhagen), which Heiner E. Schmid donated to the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen. Classical figuration in Hans Josephsohn’s (*1920, Königsberg; †2012, Zurich) sculptures is combined with series of works by Fritz Wotruba (*1907, †1975, Vienna), one of the most important late modernist sculptors, who dissolved the figurative components in favor of geometric abstraction.
Contemporary art responds to these works in a very free-form manner. Works by Mäddel Fuchs (*1951, Zurich), Marisa Fuchs (*1946, Zurich), Bethan Huws (*1961, Bangor, Wales), Urs Lüthi (*1947, Lucerne), Johanna Nissen-Grosser (*1931, St. Gallen), Rita Kappenthuler (*1973, St. Gallen) and Nathan Federer (*1992, Heiden), Roman Signer (*Appenzell 1938), Bernard Tagwerker (*1942, Speicher), and Herbert Weber (*1975, Frauenfeld) follow an enjoyable path with surprising twists in dialogue with the classics.
Curator: Roland Wäspe
