A new art show in Zürich was staged this weekend - intended as an antidote to the usual commercial Art Fair stuff.

Didn't get time to look around too much, but I welcome any attempt to give artists some visibility outside the normally gallery environment.

I've put some more general photos here

Sounding like some kind of pop group, this is nonetheless a new exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zurich, juxtaposing the Swiss sculptor's work with Egyptian pieces from Berlin. Most of the Giacomettis are familiar, belonging as they do in the collection here. I had a very quick first look around today and it was intriguing to see the obvious influences. All the following images are provided kindly by the Kunsthaus.

This bust of Akhenaton is from c. 1340 BC and is fashioned from painted stucco.

Giacometti made these sketches in 1921.

Finally a self portrait from the same year. There is a striking similarity, no? He was greatly influenced by the art of ancient Egypt, and this little exhibition is a fascinating way to examine that dialogue. One of those where you can dip your toe in a little and often and new insights will come to light. More later.

No, not another music item, although anyone wanting some 60's nostalgia can go here.

Carnival is over in Venice for another year, has been for a while actually - it's touristy, unauthentic, I like it, and I missed it this year. But I came across this image from 2007 and thought I'd post it as a substitute.

I have many photos of carnival masks and costumes, and this one has always been a bit of a curates egg for me. I'm not sure if the lopsided composition can be fixed or not, or if it's even a problem. Should have been done right at the time of shooting naturally. However it still has something and I like it, so here it is.

(I've tried lots of crops, believe me, but it seems to me that an obvious crop of the right side doesn't work, although feel free to suggest anything, or even agree with me)

There is a much more detailed and scholarly write up in the wikipedia entry

This post was recycled from an item first published back in September 2006, but I wanted to mention Am Romerholz on this blog so I took the easy route, with some editing to make me feel I had put in a bit of effort.

Switzerland is fortunate to have many small galleries and private collections open to the public. These are the perfect antidote to the "Big Shows". One of the best is the Oskar Reinhart foundation at "Am Romerholz" near Winterthur. Small, quiet, intimate, with a world class collection. It has just closed for a period of refurbishment unfortunately, but visit it on a quiet day and you would have the place to yourself. I went back recently to look at a couple of pictures from the collection. I'd seen some reproductions and wanted to reassure myself that the originals were as good as I remembered. (The reproductions here are not particularly good quality)

Renoir's "Young women talking" is one of his early style, "peaches and cream" paintings. It is possible to tire of them because of endless familiarity - chocolate boxes, posters, calendars etc. However they still impress me, especially when seen in the flesh. I like this particularly painting because it has a certain photographic quality. It captures an instant, ( decisive moment), as two young women exchange some talk, or a secret or a joke or whatever. Like photographs of this genre, although it freezes an instant, it also evokes the situation and atmosphere surrounding what is going on so that our imagination is able to expand the experience. We feel we are party to it - almost as if we were there. The painting is also physically very beautiful. It hums gently with the light and smells and sounds of a summer garden. No reproduction could come close.

The second painting is one of Goya's very few still-lifes. It simply shows three salmon steaks dumped on a slab, stark against a shadowy background. This however is a powerful image, especially contrasted with other examples of the genre. It was painted between 1808 and 1812 when Goya was much affected and involved in the events of the Peninsular war.

This resulted in paintings such as "The Third of May" and later the dark and disturbing "Disasters of War" series of aquatints. This still life anticipates these, and is perhaps even more powerful because of its allegorical nature. We can imagine these pieces of salmon as the hacked limbs of victims piled in the gloom on some battlefield or other. Human beings as butchered meat. There is no attempt to prettify the scene with domestic accessories such as you find in similar paintings, and I think Goya's intention is clear. When you come across this painting in the exhibition it has quite an impact.

If you live in Switzerland, and are interested in art, the Swiss Museum pass is a good idea. Free entrance to virtually all museums and galleries in the country. See http://www.museumspass.ch/.

The Kunsthaus in Zürich is holding a Friedrich Kuhn retrospective until 1st March. All the following images are supplied courtesy of Kunsthaus Zurich.

Kuhn (1926-72) was unknown to me. I discovered an artist who was a central fixture in the culture of 60's and 70's art in Switzerland and Zurich in particular. You can also see the influences of the contemporary international pop-art movement.

Another recurring theme is the incorporation of furniture like motifs.

His father was a cabinetmaker I think. A child of his time he lived and died the artists life without ever leaving the region, physically or artistically. This gives his work some resonance and truthfulness that it might not have if he had become an internationalist.

This rather good photo was taken by his friend the Swiss artist HR Giger (of Alien "fame") shortly before his death from alcoholism in 1972 at the age of 46.

The media and techniques are varied. He seems just to have used whatever seemed appropriate. A lot of collage with contemporary media and advertising references, but also some nicely crafted drawings

Some of the large direct colourful paintings on show make an immediate graphic impact when you visit the show, but I didn't make much sense of his work until I read a bit more about him, and the context of his art. Some art speaks entirely for itself, and requires no context. Other art speaks with different voices depending on whether you engage with the context and whether you understand and interpret the context the same way as someone else might for example. Sometimes the context is there as an invisible factor, sometimes it is more direct as with Kuhn. A lot of his work makes references to his own life and what is going on around him.

This is much better explained in the handout that goes with the exhibition