Switzerland might not be the most exotic summer destination, but the level of cultural events taking place this season is certainly travel-worthy. There’s the Montreux Jazz Festival (June 30—July 15th) and the Verbier Festival for classical music (July 21st—August 6th). And plenty of fantastic contemporary art exhibitions are on view all over the country.
In Geneva, a touching, sensitive, beautiful, and educational exhibition is up at the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum. It presents 30 years of AIDS awareness campaigns, photographs, art works, and videos by artists like Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzáles-Torres, Fabrice Gygi, and more.
Courtesy of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum.
Also in Geneva this summer is a show of American conceptual artist Kelley Walker on view at the MAMCO. Walker appropriates, reinterprets, and alters images of mass consumerism. He uses digital images, collages, silkscreens, and prints, creating work some would say are inspired by Pop Art.
The Musée Jenisch located in Vevey is hosting a beautiful exhibition about the use of color in engraving and print at the end of the 19th century. At that time, prints were extremely popular—in the art world, in design, and in theater. Works by Paul Gauguin, Pierre Bonnard, and Paul Cézanne hang among other masterpieces.
Dan Graham, Project for Slide Projector, 1966-2005 © Dan Graham, courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery. Collection : Astrid Ullens de Schooten / Fondation A Stichting, Bruxelles
In Lausanne, the Musée de l’Elysée is hosting a great exhibition that explores the slide as a medium. Slides were very popular in the 1960s and 70s, used by artists such like Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Dan Graham, Robert Smithson, Alfred Stieglitz, and others. The show is divided into four sections: the image of light, the medium itself, the sequence, and the session.
Wolfgang Tillmans is a German photographer well known for his works focused on the observation of his surroundings. An exhibition of nearly 200 of his works from 1989 to 2017 is on view at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel.
Kelley Walker, Mia Wasikowska Interview Summer 2016, 2016. Four-color process silkscreen with acrylic ink and magazine collage on canvas . 189 x 45,70 cm. Courtesy of the artiste / Paula Cooper Gallery, New York ; Thomas Dane Gallery, London ; and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne
