Albert Anker, Mädchen mit zwei Katzen, 1888, Sammlung Dr. Christoph Blocher, SIK-ISEA, Zurich at Fondation Gianadda until June 30

With February, skiing season has arrived and if you go to Crans-sur-Sierre or to Verbier, make sure to stop in Martigny at Fondation Pierre Gianadda where the last exhibition conceived by Léonard Gianadda (1925-2023), its founder, opened on February 1. It is devoted to “Albert Anker and childhood”. The Swiss painter has described daily life in the countryside and scenes of French immigrants in a delightful way and gives us an idyllic vision of Helvetic society in the late XIXth century. Raised in Neuchâtel and later in Bern, he studied at the Beaux Arts in Paris and worked towards the creation of Musée des Beaux Arts in Bern. The themes developed in the show are of, school in the open, grape harvest, a young girl playing with dominos, the snow bear, old men playing with children, hospitality offered to soldiers coming back from the war, and young musicians. The curator is art historian Matthias Frehner who wrote the catalog and the exhibition was presented with great emotion by Leonard Gianadda’s son.

“Grossvater mit Enkelkindern”, 1881, Sammlung, Dr. Christoph Blocher

At Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Canadian photographer Jeff Wall (b.1946) is having his largest retrospective in Switzerland with 50 works. The extraordinary artist who lives in Vancouver, creates an invented reality with pictures such as “Donkey in Blackpool” or “Cleaning agents in Mies van der Rohe’s foundation in Barcelona”. He started out studying art history in British Columbia and then in London at the Courtauld, and tried writing films. But photography attracted him more. Great painters influenced him in his first works like “The Destroyed Room” which is composed in a similar way as Delacroix’s “The Death of Sardanapalus”. “A Sudden gust of wind” takes after Hokusai. Poussin and Claude Lorrain also influenced him. This is a show not to be missed in the prettiest Renzo Piano building (until April 21).

JEFF WALL, A SUDDEN GUST OF WIND (AFTER HOKUSAI), 1993,
Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland © Jeff Wall

Also in Basel, the extraordinary minimalist light artist Dan Flavin (1933-1996) shows 58 works at the Kunstmuseum, from March 2 until August 18. The simplicity and the beauty of his lightings is accessible to all and a perfect (warm) occupation on a winter day…

Dan Flavin, Untitled (to Barnett Newman) one, 1971, Collection Carré d’Art-Musée d’art contemporain de Nîmes © Stephen Flavin New York Courtesy David Zwirner

And of course, if you have not seen it in Paris at MAM, go to Lausanne to Fondation de l’Hermitage where Nicolas de Staël is exhibited in an edited version of 100 works (there were 300 in Paris) which might be even stronger? Special “gastronomical” tours will take place when the museum is closed to the public, on the week end from 23 February to-7 March at 6.45 pm with a dinner following the visit for 89 CHF.

Nicolas de Staël at Fondation de l’Hermitage in Lausanne

I have not yet seen these exhibitions but will in the Spring… Lausanne is 50 minutes from Martigny and 2 hrs from Basel by train.