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Women Artists in the Kunsthalle Bern - An Archival Investigation
With Maja Allenbach, Alice Bailly, Suzanne Baumann, Helen Dahm, Suzanne Duchamp, Marlene Dumas, Maria Eichhorn, May Fasnacht, Andrea Fraser, Marguerite Frey-Surbek, Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven, Käthe Kollwitz, Lilly Keller, Adèle Lilljeqvist, Margrit Linck, Verena Loewensberg, Ka Moser, Meret Oppenheim, Germaine Richier, Bridget Riley, Susanne Schwob, Shirana Shahbazi, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Doris Stauffer, Inga Vatter-Jensen, Frauenbefreiungsbewegung FBB (Women’s Liberation Movement), Swiss Society of Women Artists in the Visual Arts

29 May – 25 July 2021

curated by Michael Hiltbrunner

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Shirana Shahbazi, Vase S246 by Margrit Linck on red background, 2011
Vase S270 1, 2, and 3 by Margrit Linck, approx. 1960, 2010, Courtesy Shirana Shahbazi

The archival exhibition on the lower floor of the Kunsthalle focuses on a selection of women artists who have enriched the Kunsthalle Bern’s program with their substantial artistic contributions ever since its founding. Selected documents from the Kunsthalle’s archive as well as from the artists’ personal archives broaden the picture. The inquiry brought about surprising results: from its founding in 1918 until the early 1960s, more women artists exhibited at the Kunsthalle Bern than at any other Swiss institution. Most of them were affiliated with the Swiss Society of Women Artists in the Visual Artists SSWA and made sure they and other women were visible at the institution they had co-founded. As the number of women exhibiting at the Kunsthalle dropped in the years from 1960 to 1990, this was repeatedly met with protest.

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