Mathias Kiss at the Museo Villa Dei Cedri
Due to the health crisis linked to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Museo Villa Dei Cedri in Bellinzona (Switzerland) has been closed to the public since March 15, 2020. Following the announcement by the Swiss Government allowing the museums to reopen, Cedri is actively preparing to welcome its visitors again from Wednesday June 3.
In June, after having set up a system adapted to the strictest health recommendations to welcome the public and the teams in the best possible conditions, the Museo will reopen its spaces with the collective exhibition "Hortus Conclusus. The illusion of 'a Paradise', a set of past and present visions that investigate the relationship between man and his environment, the migration issue and the identity challenge that follows.
For the occasion, Mathias will exhibit the sculpture 90Degrees # 3, made of carpet woven by the Manufactures of Aubusson and produced by the Robert Four manufacture.
About the Exhibition
Is it conceivable to analyze our contemporary societies, Western in particular, in terms of the religious themes and the ancient myths that founded them? This is the question asked by the exhibition "Hortus conclusus. The illusion of a paradise ”starting from the Christian allegory of the enclosed garden - image of Paradise and the virginity of Mary - and the Greek myth of the Rapture of Europe, which relates the heroic journey of a young kidnapped girl, founder of European civilization.
If Western art has assimilated and propagated these two iconographies since the Middle Ages, their study offers to this day a key to reading to contemplate the works of contemporary artists who explore the relationship between man and his territory, between identity and culture.
Like the United States, Europe today seems to defend the idea of a hortus conclusus, a new inaccessible Eden, surrounded by walls, both physical and mental. The therapeutic metaphor of the garden, traditionally perceived as a place of contemplative and spiritual withdrawal, has given way to the vision of a country, which embodies the hope of a better life on the "other side" of the wall.
The works of these contemporary artists will be brought into dialogue with old prints from the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries by Albrecht Dürer, Heinrich Aldegrever, Martin Schongauer, Hendrick Goltzius and Remoldus Eynhoudts.
The artists:
Tonatiuh Ambrosetti, Jean-Marie Appriou, Mirko Baselgia, Jean Bedez, Hicham Berrada, Laura Henno, Alain Huck, Eva Jospin, Mathias Kiss, Emma Lucy Linford, François Malingrëy, Omar Mismar, Adrien Missika, Sandrine Pelletier, Pierre and Gilles, Annaïk Lou Pitteloud, Recycle Group, Mustafa Sabbagh, Conrad Willems.
