Cultural Kiosk at UN Geneva & CERN

Fondation Baur : museum of Far Eastern Art

• The collections of the Baur Foundation, Museum of Far Eastern Art, comprise some 9000 Chinese and Japanese art objects, housed in an elegant late 19th century town house.
• Acquired by the Swiss collector Alfred Baur (1865-1951) over a period of some 45 years, these exquisite works of art include Chinese imperial ceramic ware, jades and snuff bottles from the 10th to the 19th centuries, as well as Japanese prints, lacquer, netsuke, and sword fittings. Since 1995, several donations, notably of Chinese lacquer ware, export ceramics, Chinese and Japanese textiles and an important collection of objects for the Japanese Tea Ceremony, have further enriched the museum’s collections.
• Altogether, these represent the largest collections of Far Eastern art open to the public in Switzerland. Temporary exhibitions are regularly organized several times a year.
• For the museum’s 60th anniversary: free admission every Saturday! (year 2024 only)

Current temporary exhibition:
“Si loin, si proche: le pays du matin calme”
20 March – 30 June

In the wake of the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Korea, this exhibition proposes a unique meeting between two contemporary Korean artists: Ji-Young Demol Park and Lee Lee Nam.

Alongside a selection of ancient works from the Musée national des Arts asiatiques – Guimet and the Baur Foundation, their landscapes are an expression of the links established over the centuries between cultures and objects, materials, colours and motifs. Jade- and pine-coloured celadon, horizon lines tinged with blue by cobalt oxide, and porcelain glazed the colour of the snow or moon together echo the work of the two creators, whose artistic gazes meet and resonate with the landscapes of the great painter Jeong Seon (1676–1759). Many aspirants have followed in the footsteps of this famous artist of the Joseon period (1392–1910) and have identified with him. But what unites Ji-Young Demol Park’s ink-bathed mountains and Lee Lee Nam’s virtual landscapes, in spite of their differences, are as much the originality and vitality of their relationship with this heritage as the power of their respective artistic visions, which both strive to inspire a re-enchantment of nature in the viewer.