Swiss Post's art collection in dialog with museum collections

Swiss Post connects people. In the past and today. At least that is its claim and mission. The exhibition in Chur explores these different aspects of transmission and exchange. Social processes are to be reflected "in a world that has become fragile", the museum wrote on Thursday.

To this end, works of art were brought together in an associative sequence: works from the Swiss Post collection and those from the museum collection were juxtaposed. Since a federal decree to promote Swiss art and an ordinance of 1924, Swiss Post has collected over 450 works in 100 years. It also sponsored events for artists in Switzerland and was committed to art in architecture.

No postal exhibition without stamps

But art can also be more low-threshold. The postage stamp, the smallest format of a work of art, is also included in the exhibition. Over the past 100 years, Swiss Post has repeatedly commissioned artists to design stamps.

Campaigns were also launched using special stamps. Such as the "Stop AIDS" campaign in 1994, for which Niki de Saint Phalle designed a stamp. Her original design can now be seen in Chur.

During the three months of the exhibition in Chur, the various services provided by Swiss Post will be on display in nine cabinet rooms. Dialogue is the common thread running through the exhibition - whether it's about art on buildings, postcards or Postbus travel.

Diana Pavlicek, Head of Art Engagement at Swiss Post, was quoted in a press release as saying that Chur was chosen as the starting point for the exhibition series thanks to the linguistic diversity of the canton of Graubünden and its geographical location with its historically significant connections across the Alps. "Fragile. The Swiss Post Art Collection" is on display at the Bündner Kunstmuseum until August 25. The next exhibition will open in Bellinzona on September 13. (SDA)