«There is beauty in nature which cannot be imitated», wrote the artist Angelika Kauffmann, born in Graubünden and considered one of the most important female artists of the 18th century. Her impression of the inimitable beauty of nature seems to be especially true for the Val Müstair. From the archaic character of the Swiss National Park to the shiny softness of the hills, nature can be experienced here in a manner of unparalleled beauty. At the same time, the Val Müstair is a wonderful man-made landscape, characterized by the rural work performed during centuries, by the historical villages, by the world-famous convent St. Johann.
The Ospidal Val Müstair has now become a part of this man-made landscape, too. Beyond its medical functions, the Ospidal has become – by the new art collection – a place of reflection and esthetics, a cultural place.
It may astonish that a hospital should be a place for art. But even if art does not have such clear functions as a hospital with its medical responsibility, art is still about life. If medicine takes care of the body and its health, it is art that broadens the mind with esthetic and reflexive experiences. Thus, the art collection in the Ospidal Val Müstair offers more than only decorative beauty, and this idea has a long tradition in the Val Müstair: more than thousand years ago, the famous frescos in the convent St. Johann with scenes from the Old and the New Testament were meant not only to be decorative and beautiful, but to set people thinking. Moreover, the real beauty of the Val Müstair already surrounds the convent and the Ospidal – its uncomparably beautiful nature. And not even the most detailed artistic photography would be able to fully reproduce this beauty. There would be missing, for example, the scent of fir resin, the soft rocking of the grass in the wind or the thousandfold and in every moment differently appearing glittering of a winter landscape.
But anyway, art is not meant to copy all this. Its value is on the contrary to provide food for thought. Certainly, sometimes these new thoughts appear naturalistic and as detailed as possible. But sometimes, they are completely abstract or as geometric as a technologically influenced life in the present. So, art can do many things – and still nothing in the end. Because it always depends on the viewer to let himself in for art. It is only then that pieces of art begin to speak, only then that the gentle dialogue, which can be so immensely enriching, becomes possible.
At the Ospidal Val Müstair, art of different kinds is offered for this dialogue. Some works belong to the field of fine arts, others to photography, still others to original graphics, and one work is presented in a combined technique on MDF. Not every work begins to speak to the viewer in the same way, and some of them even may remain mute. But this is the idea of the collection: the art at the Ospidal Val Müstair does not want to implement feelings or thoughts to the viewers, but rather to offer the possibility to discover novelties, maybe even new feelings and thoughts in themselves.
For this purpose, the public areas of the Ospidal offer works of five highly acclaimed artists and an artist couple, all from the Canton of Graubünden: works of the photographers Thomas Popp, Stephan Schenk and Gaudenz Signorell, works of the painter Stefan Rüesch and the artist Gian Häne as well as of the artist couple Pascale Wiedemann and Daniel Mettler. The collection of original graphics consists of 35 works of the most different styles, and collaborators and in-patients are invited to choose among these works for their personal rooms. Together with the art in the public areas of the Ospidal, an extremely rich offer in esthetics and reflection results – as individual enrichment, but also as an enrichment for the Ospidal Val Müstair as an institution, being in its form committed to life as art is in a second way.
GIAN HÄNE
If the work of Gaudenz Signorell enlarges the reception area of the Ospidal and thus gives it additional perspective, Gian Häne presents a very close look to things; he even cuts them out of the background, so to speak. The expressive force of his works makes one think of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, this also regarding the live background of the artist who was born in Davos in 1979. However, there is much more in the work of Gian Häne than this expressive force Kirchner had developed in Davos. Woodcut-like elements mix with artistic, contemporary elements into a universe of colour and form, challenging at the same time childlike joy to explore and intellectual pleasure to interpret. The work seems both playful and full of allusions and thus becomes a sensuous experience far beyond its sculptural impression.
Text: Armon Fontana/Thomas Kaiser
