WE PROUDLY PRESENT…
COLLECTION ART MUSEUM THUN

The collection is both the soul and the backbone of the Kunstmuseum Thun. Every year, highlights from the collection of over 7,000 works are proudly selected and presented in a separate exhibition under a specific theme. But who knows what the collection actually looks like or what kind of personnel, material, or financial resources are involved? The Kunstmuseum Thun is using this year’s collection exhibition to reflect on its own collection. The starting point is a critical review of its own holdings.

What are the tasks and functions of a municipal collection? To what extent should regional art influence the collection? And in what form and how often is a collection best presented in an exhibition? Even if such questions cannot always be answered easily, the discussion about them is exciting. To enable such reflections, the Kunstmuseum Thun is making its own collection the subject of the exhibition with We proudly present… and showing it from a completely different angle for once.

The exhibition aims to give visitors a good and honest insight into the collection. In addition to highlights, it also features works that have never been shown before, or at least not for many years. For example, not only are thematic focal points such as landscape paintings or vedute of the city and surroundings of Thun exhibited in their own rooms. A section of the exhibition with randomly selected works also provides a kind of cross-section of the collection.

The presentation also picks up on various aspects relevant to the collection: original documents and artistic works by the first director of the Thun Art Collection, the painter Alfred Glaus, provide insight into the beginnings of the museum and the collection. Photographs by Miriam Fluri and the transfer of part of the depot to the exhibition space reveal how the museum’s own treasures are stored. And a selection of works whose acquisition was particularly welcomed by the current director and her two predecessors provides insight into strategies for expanding the collection. The exhibition is rounded off with video interviews with Thun personalities by Stephan Meylan (value) as well as brief statistical information in which the art museum answers specific questions about the collection.