Mirko Baselgia, born 1982, is one of Graubünden’s most promising young artists. On occasion of the Manor Art Prize Chur presentation the Bündner Kunstmuseum is awarding him an exhibition – the first museum exhibition of his emerging career.
In his still quite young oeuvre Mirko Baselgia proves to be an artist whose work is characterized by a particularly careful selection, use and combination of different materials. Typical for his multifaceted work is that he neither commits himself to any one medium, to any one design vocabulary nor to any special material, but newly develops each work from scratch. Topics, which interest him, are investigated by means of extensive research and by including various experts. He thereby combines artistic questioning with downright scientific methods, and so time and again comes up with surprising solutions. His sculptural works are convincing in their three-dimensional placing in space. They are emblems, which not only reflect, both in form and content, the subject’s relationship to its environment, but also raise socio-political questions.

First Museum Exhibition.
For his first museum exhibition at the Bündner Kunstmuseum Mirko Baselgia has created new works, which partly refer to the specific architectural features of the Villa Planta where the museum is located today: Thus a spring garden with three beehives appears above the main entrance, the window of the former bathroom is newly glazed, and for the sculpture niches, which are empty today, Mirko Baselgia has had new statuaries cast in lava. The exhibition extends over several rooms of the art museum integrating the connection between interior and exterior.

Catalogue
A catalogue (in German and English) published by Scheidegger&Spiess accompanies the exhibition. It is the artist’s first publication and gives a representative overview of his work to date and documents the current exhibition. In addition an interview between the artist, Stephan Kunz and Christiane Meyer-Stoll offers insight into Mirko Baselgia’s world of ideas and artistic practice.

Opening: Thursday, March 21, 2013, at 7 pm
Reception and introduction: Stephan Kunz, Director Bündner Kunstmuseum
Presentation of the Manor Art Award Chur: Pierre-André Maus, Board Member Maus Frères SA, Genève