Mirko Baselgia is our guest at Schonthal this summer 2016. We have invited the 34-year-old artist from Graubünden to launch our unique programme, the so-called Art Summer, which will turn Schönthal into an extended artist’s studio. The meadows, pastures and woods, the gallery in the monastery church, a milking shed converted into an “art shed” and an apartment in Langenbruck will all be available for the artist to explore and develop new works. Under the heading Antupada (Rhaeto-Romanic for encounter), the exhibition in the church will be a work-in-progress which we can watch emerge gradually until autumn.

Mirko Baselgia’s research work is wide-ranging: the impression of the pelt, horns and testicles of a bull play a role here, finding auratic form in alabaster and bronze. The den of a marmot finds its place in the lower rooms of the monastery. The artist scoops the clay for ceramic sculptures from the Schönthal pond, just like the 17th century brick makers who supplied the farms and villages in the surroundings from Schönthal. Walking with the forest ranger, the artist finds beech wood for sculptures; a beekeeper provides the social architecture of the bees as a model for a wooden relief. Baselgia will experiment with earth pigments and with watermarks in the Basel paper mill for works-on-paper.

The design of the exhibition in the church and the courtyard takes up elements from the historical ground plan of the former monastery so as to spatially re-connect the art programme with history, landscape and the open art studio in the shed. You are cordially invited to participate in a creative process the whole summer long, accompanied sometimes by special guests from the worlds of music, literature and philosophy.

Program

Saturday, May 28, 2016, 5 pm
A talk in the Art Shed with philosopher Prof. Markus Wild

Tuesday, June 21, 2016, 5 pm
Rhaeto-Romanic open air party at the summer solstice, with a concert by Bibi Vaplan

Saturday, August 20, 2016, 5 pm
A talk in the Art Shed with writer Iso Camartin

Saturday, October 10, 2016, 5 pm
A talk in the Art Shed with musician Peter Streiff

Photos: Stefan Altenburger (works) and Heiner Grieder (exhibition views)