BERN.- Since 28 July 2023 and continuing to 7 January 2024 the exhibition Anecdotes of Destiny presents works from the collection that have barely been shown to a larger public. Texts by renowned German-language authors broaden the narrative aspect of the 2023 summer exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bern.

The exhibition Anecdotes of Destiny shows both works that have been forgotten, ignored or barely noticed and ‘key works’ from the collection. Visitors are invited to rediscover the collection, and see it as a dynamic field which, on closer inspection, constantly reveals new meanings. The exhibition clearly demonstrates that the collection of the Kunstmuseum Bern is full of unknown stories.

The exhibition includes works by almost 80 artists. Those represented include Annie Stebler-Hopf, Marie-Louise-Catherine Breslau, Ferdinand Hodler, Max Buri, Albert Anker, Irène Zurkinden, Meret Oppenheim, Alice Bailly, Adolf Wölfli and many others. Divided into the chapters ‘Hazy Borders, ‘Dimensions of Self’, ‘Being Connected’ and ‘Being Together’, it demonstrates a huge variety of ‘Anecdotes of Destiny’. It isn’t only the works on display that reveal new stories: the German-language authors Eva Maria Leuenberger, Melinda Nadj Abonji, Dorothee Elmiger, Frédéric Zwicker and Friederike Kretzen have written texts to accompany each chapter, complementing and unveiling the works, and stimulating thought. Visitors can read the texts or hear them as audio in the Digital guide.

Creating perspectives and exchanging glances

The word ‘story’ is crucial to this exhibition. ‘Storytelling’, Hannah Arendt wrote, ‘reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.’ At the same time a story is not pure fantasy, it repeats the past. When storytellers do this, they uncover unnoticed aspects of the past, they are able to reshape them and thus give them new meaning. The title of the exhibition is borrowed from the last collection of stories Anecdotes of Destiny by the Danish author Isak Dinesen (also known as Karen Blixen). Almost all her characters manage to overcome their difficulties by telling stories and develop into strong, proud people.

The exhibition Anecdotes of Destiny is constructed like a collection of stories. For Arendt, the political function of storytelling lies in conveying different perspectives. The question of who is narrating plays an important part in this. In the main space of the exhibition the visitors follow the ‘gaze’: who is observing whom, and from what perspective? What is visible in the picture, what is only suggested, and what remains hidden? The author Melinda Nadj Abonji writes a story about this. We look at a young man, who in turn is looking at art works:

“(…) he was getting very hot and he felt he might burst out of his tight suit. All because a young woman with tattered shoes was looking at him imperiously, as if she were about to accuse him of something. But why? She was lying on a rock, looking incredibly idle, insolent, colourful. As if it was her right to do so.”

He could be a young Professor Poirier from Annie Stebler-Hopf’s Am Seziertisch (Professor Poirier, Paris) (At the Dissecting Table (Professor Poirier, Paris)). In the extract he is looking at the work Flutumfangen (Surrounded by the Flood). Both works are included in the exhibition.




Relationships in pictures and in the world

The first chapter revolves around ‘Hazy Borders’. These can be found in the relationship between artist and muse, in the contact that artists have with different social classes, and in the depiction of hybrids. The respective roles in the artist–muse relationship are not as clear as it might seem. Good examples of this are Gertrud Dübi-Müller and Ferdinand Hodler. She met him as a young woman and he painted her several times including the 1916 Portrait of Gertrud Müller in the Garden. The author Dorothee Elmiger provides an insight into this relationship:

“The painter, who evades time, evades death, by painting, is all eyes: our gaze always flits away from him, we rarely look him in the face. But when Gertrud Dübi-Müller – a painter herself – takes a seat in Ferdinand Hodler’s studio garden in 1916 and poses for the painter, she documents this process, the development of a portrait, with a camera.

(…)

But the camera doesn’t just bring the painting man into the picture, it doesn’t just return the gaze that the artist trains on the woman posing. Instead, it imitates the artist’s gaze, joining him in looking at the woman, who now appears twice, double: the portrait is completed by his model, a person. We can now see her independently, separate from the eyes and the choices of the artist.”

The second chapter, ‘Dimensions of Self’ looks at how artists would like to be perceived and what they want to share with the world. The works also show how art can lead to a rediscovery of the self. And that it can be inseparably interwoven with private life, as it was in the case of Adolf Wölfli or Esther Altorfer (1936–1988).

The third chapter, ‘Being Connected’, finds a place for still lifes and landscapes. The works invite reflection on a holistically connected ecological system.

And the fourth and final chapter, ‘Being Together’, reflects an obvious characteristic of human life: that we humans are social beings and share our lives with others.

Kunstmuseum Bern
Anecdotes of Destiny
July 28th, 2023 - January 7th, 2024