Quoi faire when the sky is heavy and you’re longing for some brain food.
Visit a museum. Or even better, visit 2 museums!
Musée d’Art et d’Histoire and MAMCO it is.
The clock on the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire’s facade is actually a counter, counting down to the end of the world. To be more precise, the extinction of the sun.
Switzerland is not really known for its museums, nor are they numerous, but sometimes you still get surprised. Our first visit was so-so, but the second one was yippie.
The building itself has a lot of grandeur but the collection is missing an eye catcher and the interior is a somewhat outdated but well maintained. You’re in Switserland after all.
The MAH has a ‘pay what you like’ policy. It offers free admission to the complete collection. You can decide for yourself what you want to pay.
Surprisingly they had works from the Turkish-American artist Burhan Dogançay on display. Know from his series ‘Walls of the worlds’
In the mid-1970’s he travelled the globe and photographed urban walls.
In 1975 he embarked for a trip to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, 2 years after the Yom Kippur war. Sadly today history repeats itself.
Dogançay systematically photographed in 114 countries walls of the world, resulting in 40.000 photographs.
And we saw some canvases from Flemish painters!
Walls are the mirror of society
Burhan Dogançay
MAMCO (Musée d’art moderne et contemporain) is something different.
It opened in 1994 in a former industrial building of 3000m2. When you enter the museum you can still smell the oil and grease used during the production of precision instruments.
MAMCO shares the building with Centre de la photography de Genève and Centre d’art Contemporain.
A refreshing artist was Klàra Kuchta, born Hungarian living is Swiss. She’s a multidisciplinary artist: video’s, photograph, performances, installations and textile artist.
Of the latter, some of her works – all made of sisal – are striking..
The shape of the works are somehow puzzling. It’s not just a flat piece of woven textile, but a three-dimensional knotted artwork.
The different floors, 4 in total, are spacious, airy and some benefit from daylight.
In the stairwell you can admire some neon art works. I always find that those neon’s create somehow a science fiction atmosphere. It was no different this time.
In the end, it was a well-spent afternoon. Both museums are on walking distance and more importantly, we were occasionally surprised and learned something new.
