current art exhibition in the gallery hotel and Shine & Dine

In collaboration with Kunsthaus Baselland

Art before breakfast and before going to bed 

A few years ago, a study by the University of St. Gallen made the rounds, investigating how long museum visitors linger in front of a work of art on average. The results were startling: according to the study, visitors stop in front of a painting or sculpture for a maximum of three seconds before moving on to the next one. But what, I asked myself at the time, can actually be transferred in those three seconds? And are art exhibitions around the world perceived more as a race than as a contemplative experience of art?
Some measures seem to help: Chairs in exhibitions, also the way in which an art house, a museum or an exhibition is guided and led through; or the question of whether there are views outside - into nature or the sky, for example - in order to take a breath mentally and also visually again and again and to link what is seen.

With this in mind, I really liked the Kulturhotel Teufelhof's invitation to invite artists to transform some of the hotel rooms and the corridors, which are accessible to everyone, with individual works for a period of around a year. Isn't this precisely the promise that guests will always have the opportunity to view the respective works in the rooms at different times - for example in the morning before or after breakfast, in the afternoon when they return after a city tour or even before they get ready for dinner? Of course, this presupposes an appreciation, because the artistic works are, as in the private sphere, completely alone in dialog with the other person - without a supervisor standing next to them and without a camera recording the scene. From the outset, the artists approached the project with a great deal of trust and friendliness. Friendliness in the sense that the artists not only simply made their works available, but also hoped for an enriching exchange that could last far longer than three seconds. These artists - namely Anja Braun, Lena Laguna Diel, Max Leiß, Katrin Niedermeier and Jacob Ott - are all active in the Basel region and are closely associated with the Kunsthaus Baselland. They have already been shown there in large solo and group exhibitions; some of them are currently represented in the large exhibition Regionale 25 at the Kunsthaus until January 19.

I am therefore delighted to be able to invite you to spend more time in your hotel room and in the corridors of the hotel. Enjoy the privilege of coming into direct contact with a work of art by one of the selected renowned artists for much longer than just 3 seconds - because this exchange, this visual dialog, will be worthwhile! 

Yours, Ines Goldbach, Director Kunsthaus Baselland / www.kunsthausbaselland.ch