Five days, six cities, ten Swiss art museums
For such a compact and sparsely populated country, Switzerland’s status as a major player in the art world is huge. Every one of the country’s key cities boasts a rich portfolio of galleries, art museums and installation sites, each home to treasures, by both contemporary artists and old masters, from Switzerland, Europe, the US and beyond.
Because of Switzerland’s bijou proportions – just 220km from north to south, 350km from west to east – and a modern, efficient and smoothly integrated public transport network, scheduling visits to multiple museums, in different cities, within a short space of time is delightfully and luxuriously achievable. You’ll also have time to discover art in the cities’ public spaces.
Ten of the country’s major art institutions have joined forces to form the Art Museums of Switzerland association, with the aim of ensuring a memorable museum experience for art enthusiasts. Follow our five-day art guide to galleries in, with a pick of the Basel, Bern, Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano and Zurich spring and summer exhibition offerings. Your art tour of Switzerland starts here.
Day one: Basel
Fondation Beyeler
Year after year, people flock to Fondation Beyeler, the Renzo Piano-designed gallery in Riehen, near Basel, to immerse themselves in the art world of founders Hildy and Ernst Beyeler, taking in its permanent collections of works from classical modernism, or a sensational exhibition. Discover 250 masterpieces from the collection and featured work by the likes of Marlene Dumas, Gerhard Richter and Ferdinand Hodler. The location, surrounded by an idyllic park with sculptures, and with the Black Forest foothills in the near distance, engenders a peaceful mood. Have lunch in the museum’s baroque-era Villa Berower restaurant afterwards.
Exhibitions: ‘Basquiat. The Modena Paintings’, 11 June – 27 August 2023; Doris Salcedo, 21 May – 17 September 2023
Museum Tinguely
The Museum Tinguely houses the world’s largest collection of art by Swiss artist Jean Tinguely, famous for his kinetic mechanical sculptures. Interactive exhibitions explore his influences, the work of his contemporaries and the latest trends. The permanent exhibition at the museum is dedicated to Tinguely’s work over four decades, while other shows throw light on his inspirations and contemporaries: Marcel Duchamp, Kurt Schwitters, Niki de Saint Phalle and Yves Klein. Currently showing is a collection of multisensory installations by Canadian artist duo Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller and work by Swiss artist Delphine Reist that offers views on the movement and rhythm of production. Designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta, the Museum Tinguely building is a work of art in itself.
New permanent exhibition: ‘La roue = c'est tout’, until spring 2025
Kunstmuseum Basel
The Kunstmuseum Basel is a three-building art campus. The main Hauptbau building on St Alban-Graben, dating from 1936, features art from the period between the 15th century and 1960. The Neubau, a 2016 addition by local architects Christ & Gantenbein, located across the street and linked to the Hauptbau by an underground passage, showcases special exhibitions as well as works from the collections in its generous spaces, including skylit third floor galleries. Contemporary art, meanwhile, is shown in the Gegenwart, on St Alban-Rheinweg, inaugurated in 1980. The three buildings of the Kunstmuseum Basel have a combined exhibition space of approximately 10,000 sq m.
Exhibitions: ‘Bernart Buffet Existentialist and Popular Artist’, at the Hauptbau until 3 September 2023; Shirley Jaffe, ‘Form as Experiment’ until 30 July 2023
‘Matisse, Derain and Friends. The Paris Avantgarde 1904–1908’, 2 September 2023 to 21 January 2024
Day two: Bern
Zentrum Paul Klee
Zentrum Paul Klee opened in 2005, dedicated to the life and work of Paul Klee and housing over 4,000 paintings by the Swiss artist, Renzo Piano’s steel and glass, wave-like structure also offers a platform for music, theatre, dance and literature. Klee's output is shown in a regularly changing, rotating selection of 120 to 150 works, always with different themes. The centre’s Kindermuseum Creaviva for young art lovers offers a learning-by-doing experience, exploring the techniques and themes of the great art masters.
Exhibitions: Paul Klee, ‘Everything Grows’, from 20 May to 22 October 2023;
Hannah Höch, ‘Assembled Worlds’, from 10 November 2023 to 25 February 2024;
Monika Sosnowska, from 3 June to 10 September 2023
Day three: Geneva
MAMCO
Geneva’s Musée d’art moderne et contemporain (MAMCO) is original in every way. Since it opened in 1994, Switzerland’s premier contemporary art museum has operated a dynamic display policy; large windows, vast rooms and expansive floors bear the traces of long-gone machinery in a former factory space. MAMCO’s collection includes major artworks, sculptures and installations by Christo, Jenny Holzer, Dan Flavin, Sarkis and Sylvie Fleury. The museum’s ‘Nuit des Bains’ (bath night), a nocturnal event on the last Thursdays of March, May and September, attracts thousands of art lovers.
Exhibitions: General Idea’, until 18 June 2023;
‘Ian Burn’, until 18 June 2023
Day Four: Lausanne
Plateforme 10
Plateforme 10 is a 25,000 sq m arts district a few steps from Lausanne’s railway station, bringing together the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts (MCBA), Photo Elysée and the mudac (Museum of Contemporary Design and Applied Arts). The MCBA building, designed by the architects Barozzi Veiga, opened in October 2019. The Photo Elysée and Mudac building, designed by Aires Mateus, was inaugurated in June 2022. The current Plateforme 10 must-see is an immersive experience at Photo Elysée curated by Florence Tétier (Jean Paul Gaultier’s creative director) and Nicolas Coulomb (photographer and consultant for Novembre magazine) exploring the notions of beauty, identity and gender.
Exhibitions: ‘Under Your Smell. ECAL x Jean Paul Gaultier’, until 21 May 2023
Day Five: Lugano
Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana Lugano
Through its two locations – the LAC cultural centre and the historic Palazzo Reali – Museo d'arte della Svizzera italiana Lugano (MASI Lugano) offers a rich programme with temporary exhibitions and changing collection presentations as well as a comprehensive, multilingual educational programme for visitors of all ages. The offer is complemented by the close collaborations with the Collezione Giancarlo e Danna Olgiati, which is part of the MASI Lugano network, entirely dedicated to contemporary art.
Exhibitions: ‘Rita Ackermann. Hidden’, until 13 August 2023;
‘Werner Bischof. Unseen Colour’, until 2 July 2023
Day 6: Zurich region
Fotomuseum Winterthur & Fotostiftung Schweiz
See the world through a lens at the Fotomuseum in Winterthur. Via a collaboration with the Fotostiftung Schweiz, this European centre of excellence for photographic art has established its place as one of the great Art Museums of Switzerland. Exploring all aspects of the medium, the museum places the artistic, technical and cultural manifestations of photography in meaningful context and critically reflects creative conditions. The emphasis at Fotostiftung Schweiz is on Swiss photography with a particular focus on the 20th century, while Fotomuseum Winterthur presents and examines international, contemporary photography in the context of themed group exhibitions and individual works by renowned practitioners. Represented here are works by Walter Bosshard, Marianne Breslauer, Nicolas Faure, Henriette Grindat, René Groebli, Monique Jacot and others.
Exhibitions: ‘VALIE EXPORT. The Photographs’, until 29 May 2023
Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Switzerland’s foremost museum of design and visual communication, comprises four collections –– Poster, Design, Graphics and Applied Art – encompassing more than 500,000 objects. Fascinating temporary exhibitions featuring work by Le Corbusier, Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Freitag help document the evolution of design through a systematic collection that began back in 1875. Highlights include milestones in aesthetic and technical development from the beginning of industrialisation. In the heart of the vibrant hipster district of Zurich-West, and connected to the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), the Toni-Areal is the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich’s annex, and presents a programme of changing exhibitions, experimental projects and observations on current design debates.
New permanent exhibition: ‘Game Design Today’, until 23 July 2023;
‘Akris. Fashion. Selbstverständlich’, until 24 September 2023
Kunsthaus Zürich
Zurich’s largest collection of modern art features work by Alberto Giacometti, Cindy Sherman, Pablo Picasso, Anna Boghiguian, Claude Monet and Marc Chagall as well as numerous contemporary Swiss artists. A spectacular extension by David Chipperfield Architects makes the Kunsthaus Zürich the largest art museum in Switzerland, its gallery walls now hosting the biggest and most significant collection of work by Edvard Munch outside Norway, the most comprehensive museum holdings of art by Giacometti. The New York School is also represented, along with Pop Art from Europe and America.
Exhibitions: ‘Re-Orientations. Europe and Islamic Art’, until 16 July 2023; ’Giacometti/Dalí. Dream Gardens’, until 2 July 2023
Getting there, getting around and getting in
Fly to Switzerland with Swiss Air
Check out the following for urban travel and other discounts and free admissions:
BaselCard
Bern Museum Card
Pass Lake Geneva-Alps
MyLugano Pass
Ticino Ticket
Zurich Card
Swiss Travel Pass
Museum pass: Swiss Museums Pass (includes 21 museums in Basel, 56 in Zürich, several in the Lake Geneva area, and five in Lugano)
Planning your next trip to Switzerland
By air
A large number of airline companies land in Zurich, Geneva, Basel and Bern Belp. Swiss International Air Lines is the national carrier of Switzerland serving more than 100 worldwide destinations.
By train
Whether you’re travelling from Frankfurt, Milan, Paris, Prague, Budapest or Vienna, the train will take you right to the heart of the Alpine nation – in total comfort and several times daily.
By car
For travellers arriving by road, Switzerland is linked to Europe’s extensive motorway network.
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