Call for Art Historians & Cultural Mediators

Sample Tour Concepts & Collection Themes

To give you an idea of our mediation framework, here are examples of prospective tour themes built around Zürich's Kunsthaus permanent collections:

1. Breaking the Rules: The Birth of Modern Art

• Kunsthaus Focus: Monet, Van Gogh, Munch, and the early Impressionist/Expressionist galleries.
• Tour Narrative: How 19th-century artists abandoned realistic depiction to capture raw light, color, and inner emotion, sparking the modern art revolution.
• Post-Tour Discussion: What makes a masterpiece? When color and technique broke away from tradition, how did society decide what was "good" art—and how do we decide today?

2. Radical Dreams: Surrealism and Beyond

• Kunsthaus Focus: Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Max Ernst, and Joan Miró.
• Tour Narrative: Exploring how artists turned to dreams, the subconscious, and the bizarre to make sense of a rapidly changing 20th-century world.
• Post-Tour Discussion: Decoding the Unconscious: Does art need to make sense to be meaningful, or should it simply provoke a reaction?

3. The Human Condition: Expression & Isolation

• Kunsthaus Focus: The dedicated Alberto Giacometti collection alongside Francis Bacon.
• Tour Narrative: Examining Giacometti’s elongated, fragile figures and post-war expressionist painting to see how artists visualised human vulnerability, isolation, and resilience.
• Post-Tour Discussion: Art as a Mirror: Why do melancholic or raw artworks often evoke such deep personal empathy in us compared to joyous art?

4. Pop, Color, and Consumer Culture

• Kunsthaus Focus: Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Sigmar Polke, and post-war contemporary masters.
• Tour Narrative: Tracing how artists in the 1960s and 70s turned everyday consumer goods, mass media, and vivid commercial color into high art.
• Post-Tour Discussion: High Art vs. Low Culture: Where is the line between artistic commentary and clever marketing?

5. Contemporary Visions: Art of Our Time (Chipperfield Extension)

• Kunsthaus Focus: Contemporary monumental paintings, light installations, and dynamic sculptures in the new Chipperfield building.
• Tour Narrative: A vibrant walkthrough of art created in recent decades, focusing on how modern creators play with scale, unexpected materials, and spatial light.
• Post-Tour Discussion: Experiencing the New: When walking through contemporary art, do you look for story, craft, or emotional vibe first?

Have Your Own Concept? 

We welcome custom tour proposals! If you have a specialized research focus or thematic angle tied to a Swiss permanent collection or temporary exhibition, we want to hear it.