The studio has always served as a projection screen: a place of retreat and of inspiration—a space of intimacy that is simultaneously dedicated to the public. Alberto Giacometti decisively shaped the topos with his austere, practically legendary studio. Today the studio can actually be a factory, a collective workspace in which art is created in visible processes. For many contemporary artists, the studio is no longer just a physical place but can be a computer screen, an interface, or a digital network. At the same time, the studio frequently became a motif and a stage for artistic work.
The exhibition examines various concepts, legends, and realities of the studio by bringing together works from the permanent collection and a selection of video works by artists including Klodin Erb, Paul McCarthy, and Adrian Paci. They present the studio as a global production site, a space for thinking, and a place of the imagination—and simultaneously as a place in which the romantic image of the artist’s space is ironically broken down. However, the studio is also a space of longing, whose meaning is constantly changing: How do globalization and digitalization impact the production of artistic work in the studio? How do concepts of the studio shape, to this day, the self-understanding of artists? Who still works in a studio today—and who merely dreams of it?

With works by Matthew Barney, Mirko Baselgia, Flurin Bisig, Klodin Erb, Stefan Gritsch, Maude Léonard-Contant, Catrin Lüthi K, Paul McCarthy, and Adrian Paci