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SUSCH

 MUZEUM SUSCH: 

ALPINE LABORATORY



Edited by Jennifer Higgie.

Photography by Hélène Binet

Designed by Julia Born

Texts by Chloe Aridjis, Kirsty Bell, Brian Dillon, Mareike Dittmer, Pawel Gozlinski, Siri Hustvedt, Alice Rawsthorn & Chasper Schmidlin

Description

"This is a story of excavations: not only of rock and soil but of history, folklore and architecture; of the various ideas and impulses that inspire artists to create their unique objects. When Muzeum Susch opened its doors in 2018, it made clear its intentions: that in a village amid the vast beauty of the Engadin valley, a dedicated team of curators and researchers would devote themselves to exploring new narratives, unearthing forgotten or overlooked stories of female artistic achievement, and championing experimentation in exhibition making and writing. 

Illustrated with a selection of gorgeously atmospheric portraits of the museum and its surrounds by the renowned architectural photographer Hélene Binet, this book is a compilation of essays, interviews and one short story by a group of brilliant writers who have variously spent time in the ‘alpine laboratory’ that is Muzeum Susch. Design historian Alice Rawsthorn delves into architects Chasper Schmidlin and Lukas Voellmy’s radical vision for carving the gallery spaces from the hard rock beneath the original buildings; Mareike Dittmer talks with Schmidlin about his motivations; Paweł Goźliński profiles Grażyna Kulczyk while and Brian Dillon meditates on the building’s origins as a monastery on the pilgrim’s route. Art historian Kirsty Bell mines the matrilineal legacies that shape the museum’s programme and, in her short story, novelist Chloe Aridjis spins a magical tale inspired by the folklore of the Engadin. 

That Muzeum Susch has gallery spaces hewn from stone is symbolic on many levels: it embodies the idea that art history is no longer fixed but mutable and that women are literally breaking down the walls – both literal and metaphorical – that, for far too long, have confined them. In her essay, Kirsty Bell quotes the museum’s visionary founder Grazyna Kulczyk: ‘Monographic presentations of women artists from the past take on a particular intensity here – set within stone, centuries-old walls, they gain an even deeper resonance.’ 

The first exhibition at Muzeum Susch, ‘A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women’ included the work of 35 artists and was inspired by the novelist and art historian Siri Hustvedt’s powerful 2016 essay of the same name, which we are honoured to reproduce in full. In Hustvedt’s new introduction she declares: ‘Visual perception is active, not passive, informed by experience and perception. […] In an age of dangerous, reactionary and authoritarian movements around the world, Muzeum Susch is helping us learn to see again and again.’" 

Jennifer Higgie