Schwan­den-San­ta Mo­ni­ca

Photographers
Kurt Blum | René Burri | Alexander Egger
Bernhard Giger | René Groebli | Peter von Gunten
Vera Isler | Yoshiko Kusano | Jean Luc Meyssonnier
Ernst Scheidegger | Paul Senn | Michel Sima

To the exposition
The invention of photography in the 19th century visibly changed art. Portrait photography soon replaced classical painting and contributed greatly to the rapid spread of the new medium, which increasingly aroused interest among artists. These and their studios soon became the focus of photographers and became a motif. The photographs obtained give us exciting insights into the world of art sites and the way artists work. The German photographer Carl Teufel (1845-1912) was one of the first to systematically photograph artists in their studios and took a total of more than 300 photographs of Munich studios from 1890 onwards.

Before and after the Second World War, studios of famous artists became important motifs for photographers who created their own art with these works and contributed a lot to the recognition of the genre as an art form.
The high intensity of these works, their sensuality and ultimately their quality often arose from a close relationship between the people portrayed and the photographer. Many of the photographs shown in this exhibition are beautiful evidence of this.
The French photographer Michel Sima (1912-1987), for example, had a very close connection to Pablo Picasso, who not only supported him after his return from the concentration camp, but also encouraged him to take photographs again. Sima subsequently photographed his work in progress for Picasso and documented its progression.

The current exhibition at the Kunsthaus includes around 100 photographic portraits, mostly black and white, from the studios of artists of national or international importance. The focus is on photographs by Michel Sima, who visited and photographed almost all of the important artists of the Ecole de Paris in their studios over several years. Sima's photographs by Pablo Picasso and never-before-published photographs by Alberto Giacometti are also on display in Paris.

The recovered film Swiss Artists in 21 Minutes (1968) by Peter von Gunten expands the exhibition into a filmed portrait of the artist.
Schwanden − Santa Monica, the title of the exhibition, is symbolic of the diversity of the show and refers to the photographs by Paul Senn (1901-1953) in Johann Peter Flück's studio in Schwanden in the early 1940s and to those by Kurt Blum (1922−2005) in Sam Francis' studio in Santa Monica.
The exhibition combines regional and international aspects and includes works from the beginnings of photography to the present.
You are cordially invited to the vernissage and the exhibition. We look forward to your visit.
Kunsthaus Interlaken

Opening hours
Wednesday-Saturday, 2-5 p.m. | Sunday, 11am-5pm Closed Monday and Tuesday

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