Painting on the move

A visitor at the exhibition enjoying Fernand Leger's "Femme et l'enfant" at the Kunstmuseum in Basel swissinfo.ch

Art lovers wanting to enjoy a new exhibition in Basel will have to dust off their walking shoes - the show is taking place simultaneously at three museums.

The Kunstmuseum, Kunsthalle and the Museum for Contemporary Arts in Basel have teamed up to stage “Painting on the Move”, a unique exhibition that aims to revive interest in both painting and the museums’ collections.

“People are starting to forget how much we have to offer,” said the director of the Kunstmuseum, Bernhard Mendes Bürgi, adding that the show was a good way of reminding them.

Although each exhibition has its own focus, the paintings are all 20th century works by masters such as Picasso, Monet, Cézanne and Ferdinand Hodler, and later artists such as Warhol.

Dying out

A key aim of exhibition is to refute the suggestion that painting is dying out as an art form. Bürgi says the death of painting was proclaimed as long ago as 1968, but it has yet to happen.

Indeed, the Museum of Contemporary Art has dubbed its exhibition: “There is no Final Picture – Paintings after 1968”. It shows works how artists such as Andy Warhol, Robert Ryman and Gerhard Richter found new dynamic paths between abstraction and realism, intellectual concept and direct sensuality.

After reality

The “After Reality” exhibition at the Kunsthalle concentrates on realism and shows the rivalry between painting and photography with works by 23 artists, such as Tim Gardner, Sarah Morris and Wilhelm Sasnal.

Entitled “A Century of Contemporary Painting” the Kunstmuseum shows the significance of painted art in the 20th century.

The exhibition, which runs until September 8, can be enjoyed by just popping in to one museum, but it’s worth making the effort and visiting all three.

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