Claude Monet’s water lilies, Andy Warhol’s soup can, Arnold Böcklin’s preaching Saint Anthony, Francis Bacon’s triptych and Franz Gertsch’s ‘Franz and Luciano’: ‘Icons. Selected Works from the Collection’ brings together some of the best-known works at Kunsthaus Zürich. In the Chipperfield building, the Kunsthaus presents selected highlights across around 800 m², with works by artists including Albert Anker, Heidi Bucher, Ferdinand Hodler, Marlow Moss, Pablo Picasso, Auguste Rodin, Cindy Sherman, Sophie Taeuber-Arp and many others. Familiar works enter into new relationships with one another, opening up unexpected perspectives on the collection.
Created between 1622 and 1998, paintings, sculptures and works on paper from different periods come together in chronological and transhistorical groups. Works by Claude Monet, for example, are shown alongside Ferdinand Hodler, Paul Gauguin and Pierre Bonnard, while a monumental machine sculpture by Jean Tinguely is combined with a painting by H. R. Giger. Curated by Maja Wismer, the exhibition invites visitors to see familiar icons differently, discover surprising connections and encounter the collection anew in all its diversity. The presentation is complemented by personal perspectives: well-known and lesser-known Zurich residents have each selected a work from the collection and explain why it particularly moves or accompanies them. Their texts open up individual approaches to the works and show how differently art can be experienced.
The exhibition has been generously supported by a Zurich cultural foundation.
