Prière de Toucher/ The Touch of Art

Museum Tinguely is pursuing the project of an exhibition series with which it sheds light on the complex theme of the five human senses and their portrayal in art up to the present day. 2015 saw the opening of the first exhibition under the title, ‘Belle Haleine – The Scent of Art’, and this year will see a continuation with ‘PRIÈRE DE TOUCHER – The Touch of Art‘. This exhibition is devoted to the fascinating phenomenon of haptic perception and makes a break with customary museum practice of appealing primarily to the visitor’s visual sense.

The exhibition is centered around the sense of touch and the haptic system as a possibility of aesthetic perception, and it throws up a series of questions at the same time: How do we perceive tactile art? What happens when our skin suddenly plays the main role in the experiencing of art? Even without direct physical contact with the beholder, can artworks appeal to their sense of touch? Can tactile experiences be described and translated into images? Works from entirely different eras testify to an understanding of art that includes the tactile dimension. Tactility has increasingly become a deliberately employed design element since the mid-20th century.