Swiss Talks #1
H18:30
With Annette Gigon, Katharina Beisiegel, Evelyn Steiner
H18:30
With Annette Gigon, Katharina Beisiegel, Evelyn Steiner
The talk will be held in English at H18:30 CasabellaLaboratorio, Theatro, via Vigevano 8, Milano.
Swiss Talks #1
Architects and Art Curators. Possible Dialogues
With Annette Gigon and Katharina Beisiegel
Moderated by Evelyn Steiner
30 years after completing the Kirchner Museum in Davos, Annette Gigon, partner of the well-known studio Gigon-Guyer, speaks with the museum’s artistic curator and current director Katharina Beisiegel, moderated by Evelyn Steiner.
The numerous museums Gigon-Guyer designed after the Kirchner, their first museum, is the starting point for a conversation exploring how the work and expertise of the architect can enrich that of the curator, and vice versa. Additionally, it allows for an initial exploration of the boundaries and limitations of the two disciplines.
Swiss Talks. Architecture VS Art
Swiss Talks is a series of talks dedicated to the orientations of contemporary architecture in Switzerland, now in its seventh edition.
Three evenings during 2023 are dedicated to intersections between architecture and art, from the Alpine valleys historically and geographically connected to Italy, such as Engadina and Val Bregaglia, in an imaginary descent will lead towards the Venice lagoon, in conjunction with the Biennale. How does an art museum age? How to spatially enhance a large art collection? What does it mean to design an atelier to house an artist’s work?
The request has been made to the CNAPPC for the recognition of 2 CFP for architects for this initiative.
A project by Istituto Svizzero and CasabellaFormazione, curated by Francesca Chiorino.
In collaboration with ProViaggi Architettura.
Many thanks to Theatro for their hospitality.
Biographies:
Annette Gigon is founding partner of Gigon/Guyer Architects. Among their oeuvre are the Kirchner Museum in Davos (1992), the extension to the Kunstmuseum in Winterthur (1995), the Art Museum Appenzell (1998), the Fondazione Marguerite Arp, Locarno (2014), the recent Josef Albers Gallery in Bottrop, Germany (2022) and also the archaeological museum and park in Kalkriese near Osnabrück (2002), as well as the three buildings for the Swiss Museum of Transport Luzern (2009 and 2023). Their work also includes the high-rise office building Prime Tower, Zurich (2011) and also residential architecture. Furthermore, the subject of conversion, renovation and building within existing structures has occupied the architects since the beginning of their careers, cf. the extension and renovation of the Collection Oskar Reinhart Römerholz, Winterthur (1998), the Villa in Kastanienbaum (2004) or the Arts Center Löwenbräu-Areal (2014). Since 2012 she is Professor for Architecture and Construction at the ETH Zurich.
Katharina Beisiegel is a curator and publicist with a special focus on modern art. She has been serving as the director of the Kirchner Museum Davos since the fall of 2021, having previously spent eight years as the deputy director of the Art Centre Basel. In 2018, Beisiegel chaired the first international conference on the work of expressionist painter Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, titled Rethinking Kirchner. Beisiegel has curated exhibitions both in Germany and abroad, including retrospective exhibitions on Kirchner at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, on Monet and the Impressionists at the ARoS Art Museum, and on Pablo Picasso at the Vancouver Art Gallery. In 2017 she curated the exhibition New Museums: Intentions, Expectations, Challenges on museum architecture at the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Geneva; a topic which she picked up again in 2022 with a collaboration with Annette Gigon and Mike Guyer on the exhibition Gigon/Guyer. Kirchner Museum Revisited.
Evelyn Steiner completed her architecture studies at ETH Zurich in 2007. After working as an architect in Rome, Barcelona and Zurich, she began studying art history with a focus on exhibitions and museology at the University of Bern. After completing her master’s degree, she worked from 2012 to 2014 as a scientific trainee at the Deutsches Architekturmuseum in Frankfurt. From 2014 to 2016 she worked as a curator at the Swiss Architecture Museum in Basel, where she was responsible for several exhibition projects and catalogues. Until 2022 she worked as a curator at the Zentrum Architektur Zürich and in 2021 curated the Salon Suisse at the Venice Architecture Biennale on behalf of Pro Helvetia. In addition to her curatorial work, she works as a publicist and moderator in the field of tension between architecture and art.