Silent Vision: Images of Calm and Quiet

The exhibition responds to the social need of the contemporary age we are living. Characterised by movement and velocity, which have also found multiple manifestations in art, the modern age looks at quiet and calm as a social and physical need. Especially in times of ever increasing acceleration such as ours, the need for peace and repose seems particularly pronounced.

The museum itself is brought into focus as a potential site of stillness and reflection. Each room of the exhibition is devoted to a specific aspect of the notion of calm and quiet, inviting viewers to silent vision and contemplation: static and bodily repose, the idyllic stillness of nature, celestial calm and the quiet before the storm, stillness and emptiness, balanced compositions, still lifes, inner peace, silence, solitude and meditation as well as sleep and eternal rest are the themes underlying the exhibition’s different sections. Together, the selected artworks display the rich scope of the exhibition’s theme, mostly in the media of painting and sculpture.

The exhibition features works from the collection, spanning the period from Impressionism to contemporary art, by Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Piet Mondrian, Hans Arp, Alberto Giacometti, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Richard Serra, Gerhard Richter and Marlene Dumas as well as many other artists. Major long term loans from private collections round off the Fondation Beyeler’s collection display.