Annual program 2023 at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen and the LOK
Annual program 2023 at the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen and the LOK
The solo exhibition of Sheila Hicks kicks off the new year at the LOK beginning February 4. It is also the first exhibition of the new director Gianni Jetzer, who has been in office since November 2022. The second exhibition at the LOK will be a solo presentation with the artist Camille Henrot, curated by Nadia Veronese, starting on June 10. The Kunstmuseum St. Gallen will also present the work of contemporary artists in four other solo exhibitions in 2023: Tschabalala Self from February 25; Jiajia Zhang from April 22; Roman Signer from September 9; and Juliette Uzor, Manor Art Prize winner St. Gallen 2023, from November 25.
The two collection presentations Unexpected Encounters and Collection Fever contrast familiar works from the collection with works of artists from outside the collection and offer a broader perspective that breaks with conventional readings of key works in the museum. The history of the collection is also the focus of the exhibition Forward into the Past – Provenance Stories from the Collection, which tells of illustrious previous owners of works on display, as well as of adventurous processes, compelling mysteries and unanswered questions about the origin of artworks in the museum.
Sheila Hicks
4 February – 14 May 2023, LOK
Sheila Hicks’s (*1934, Hastings, Nebraska) inventiveness knows no bounds. The Paris-based artist plays with natural materials through the use of breathtaking colors, knotting, weaving and spinning new forms out of wool, linen and silk. Hicks was influenced by Modernism, having studied painting under the Bauhaus master Josef Albers at Yale University, as well as pre-Columbian weaving, which she learned during a study trip to Chile.
Tschabalala Self
25 February – 18 June 2023, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
Tschabalala Self (*1990, Harlem, New York) is deeply engaged with the medium of painting. She paints with various pigments, materials, textiles and threads. Her unique approach includes found, acquired and handdyed fabrics. With these materials, Self creates figures that depict avatars rather than individuals. The artist draws from her personal experiences as a Black American woman. In this context she stages bodies that are often exalted and excluded within her imagined environments.
Unexpected Encounters
New Perspectives on the Collection
25 February – 5 November 2023, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
The museum and the collection grow together, with the collection traditionally reflecting the interests and focuses of the exhibition program. In the past, as with most museums in the West, this program was oriented toward an art history defined by men. Female artists have been and still are underrepresented. Unexpected Encounters: New Perspectives on the Collection proposes a new direction, contrasting familiar works from the collection with artists from outside the collection. The exhibition offers a broader perspective and breaks with conventional readings of key works at the museum.
Jiajia Zhang
22 April – 27 August 2023, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
Jiajia Zhang (*1981, Hefei, China) works with photography and film. She often integrates found footage into her work, resulting in elegiac, emotional and personal series of photos and video collages. At the core of Zhang’s work is the question of how the stream of images on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram and Tiktok shape our reality.
Camille Henrot
10 June – 5 November 2023, LOK
The work of the French artist Camille Henrot (*1978, Paris, France) is multilayered, and makes use of numerous references to film, literature, social media and the absurdity of everyday life. Henrot’s sculptures, films and paintings deal with existential emotions, dependency and alienation. Personal topics point to socially relevant issues, such as the role of women, and link the personal to the universal.
Haris Epaminonda
8 July 2023 – 14 January 2024, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
Haris Epaminonda’s (*1980, Nicosia, Cyprus) work engages with a complex, culturalhistorical cosmos. Her work intertwines film, sculpture, found objects and images culminating in spatial installations and multilayered narratives. Epaminonda’s subjects come from a wide variety of sources and leave room for numerous associations.
Collection Fever
26 August 2023 – 5 May 2024, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
The second collection exhibition Collection Fever explores how the museum came into existence and how the collection developed. What stories do the works in the collection tell, and how can these stories be transformed from obscurity to visibility. New questions, contemporary positions and artistic interventions present the collection in a different light.
Forward to the Past
Stories of Provenance from the Collection
26 August 2023 – 5 May 2024, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
Pictures and sculptures tell stories. Where do they come from? Where were they before they arrived at the museum? Who did they belong to, and how did they become part of the collection? Provenance research examines these questions. The exhibition Forward to the Past: Stories of Provenance from the Collection presents a wide variety of journeys by exploring illustrious previous owners, dramatic histories, compelling mysteries and open questions about the origins of artworks at the museum.
Roman Signer
Donation from the Ursula Hauser Collection
9 September 2023 – 10 March 2024, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
Roman Signer (*1938, Appenzell) has made a name for himself as an “artist of explosions”. Yet this description does not do justice to his wide-ranging work. Signer, who lives in St. Gallen, often works with more subtle forces such as wind, water and gravity. The installations he creates are artistic experiments with ironic and sometimes poetic nuances. This exhibition, based on the donation from the Ursula Hauser Collection 2022, presents largescale works that play with the element of water on a grand scale.
Juliette Uzor
2023 Manor Art Prize St. Gallen
25 November 2023 – 11 February 2024, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen
Juliette Uzor’s (*1992, St. Gallen) work deals with collective and interdisciplinary processes. She uses a variety of forms, including installation and performance in which the body acts exaggeratedly through precise movements. Social realities and ambivalent identities are often the starting point of Uzor’s work. These depictions are simultaneously situational, actionoriented and fleeting, and relate rhythms, temporality, and movement to each other.
If you are interested in scheduling an interview, please contact us at kommunikation@kunstmuseumsg.ch
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Press contact: kommunikation@kunstmuseumsg.ch
Gloria Weiss Kunstmuseum St.Gallen, Head of Communications, T +41 71 242 06 84
Sophie Lichtenstern Kunstmuseum St.Gallen, Communications, T +41 71 242 06 85