Agenda

On the occasion of the 150th birthday of the artist Werner Büchly (1871-1942), the Icon Museum in Lenzburg focuses on his great pictorial historical, religious and cultural themes.

Among his most important works are those on the Angelrain Schoolhouse in Lenzburg and the Pestalozzi Schoolhouse in Birr (1906), in the crematoriums in Aarau and Zurich, in the Vindonissa Museum in Brugg or in the parish church in Othmarsingen.

The almost forgotten artist left an impressive oeuvre. His apostles, heroes, gods, scientists and other personalities decorate the halls and facades of schools and other educational institutions, churches, government buildings and villas.

His representations in the exhibition (Helden und Propheten) also depict the great philosophical and religious questions.

Davos (Canton of Graubünden) is the subject of this exhibition (Europa auf Kur. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Thomas Mann und der Mythos Davos).

The (former) mountain village makes European cultural and medical history visible. The show links medical and spa history, architecture, winter sports, art and literature, philosophy and politics.

The high mountain air was a remedy against the contagious disease tuberculosis. From 1870 onwards, Davos rapidly changed from a mountain village into an international health resort.

At the same time, Davos developed into a renowned winter sports resort. The Beau Monde met in Davos: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Katia and Thomas Mann, Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, Albert Einstein and Sonja Henie are only a few celebrities who visited Davos.

The exhibition tells their stories. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner left Berlin to stay in Davos. In the novel Der Zauberberg, Thomas Mann describes Davos as a symbol of Europe’s dreams and misfortunes.

The exhibited masterpieces by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner from the Kirchermuseum open a new perspective on European cultural life at the turn of the century.

Other Objects are displayed for the first time. They come from the German National Museum (Germanisches Nationalmuseum), the Davos Historical Museum (Heimatmuseum Davos), the Davos Sports Museum (Sportmuseum Davos), the Medical History of Davos ( Medizinhistorische Sammlung Davos) and the Davos Documentation Library (Dokumentationsbibliothek Davos).

The original diaries, notes and photographs from the Thomas Mann Archives at the ETH Zurich document the history of the Der Zauberberg in an impressive manner.

“From what our eyes see when we walk in streets, anywhere in the world, under and around our feet, on pavements covered with the remnants of paint and chewing gum, wet spots and tyre tracks, I have created photographs and photographic compositions that allude to the world of Atlases, to the pages filled with images of the universe, geographical maps, landscapes, invitations to discover the world and to invent other worlds”.

(A partir de ce qui tombe sous nos yeux quand on marche dans les rues du monde, là autour de nos pas comme dessous, sur les trottoirs couverts de restes de peinture et de cheving-gum aplatis, de taches d’humidité et d’autres traces de pneu, râpées, j’ai réalisé des photographies et des compositions photographiques faisant allusion au monde des Atlas, aux pages remplies d’images de l’univers, de cartes de géographie, de paysages, d’invitations à découvrir comme à inventer le monde, un monde).

As the artist, Alan Humerose (1956) himself, says, the photographs that make up The Great Atlas of Downcast Eyes (Le Grand Atlas des yeux baissés) are nothing more than an invitation. An invitation to explore, change viewpoints, and imagine a different reality, but also and above all to dream.

To walk the pavements as if leafing through an atlas, to get lost in their roughness, to be intoxicated by their colours and to use these unexpected discoveries to form a new poetic and photographic universe, that is what The Great Atlas of Downcast Eyes is about.

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