The latest exhibition highlights in Switzerland

2025 is the year for major special exhibitions! Join moments on an artistic journey from avant-garde and feminist art to architectural milestones.

Colourful, expressive, introspective and political – this year, museums and galleries in Switzerland will again inspire visitors with a wide range of exhibitions.

The Fondation Beyeler is in the grip of ESC fever: ​‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’

Europe is turning its attention to Basel, where the 69th Eurovision Song Contest will take place between 13 and 17 May 2025. Aside from the live shows and ESC parties, a special programme awaits fans at the Fondation Beyeler: the special exhibition entitled ​‘Somewhere over the Rainbow’ will take place between 9 and 18 May 2025. Based on the famous song from the musical ​‘The Wizard of Oz’, the exhibition title already reveals the main theme to be addressed: the love of music, colour, and diversity. The first work of art is already visible before you even enter the museum: from the roof of the Fondation, the inviting rainbow sculpture ​‘we are poems’ by Ugo Rondinones welcomes guests. Inside, works by Monet, Picasso, Warhol, and Basquiat transform the foundation into a colourful meeting place for music and art enthusiasts.

Tip: During the ESC week, the cost of admission is reduced and is free for under-25s.

From 9 to 18 May 2025 at the Fondation Beyeler

Northern Lights at the Fondation Beyeler

The vast forests, the radiant light of the seemingly endless summer days, the long winter nights, and natural phenomena such as the Northern Lights have given rise to a distinct, modern Nordic painting style. The ​‘Northern Lights’ exhibition is a series of masterpieces created between 1988 and 1937. The exhibition centres around 74 landscape paintings by artists from Scandinavia and Canada. The boreal forest is their common source of inspiration.

This forest extends north and south along the Arctic Circle and is one of the largest primeval forests on earth. It has been increasingly depicted as a spiritual landscape by renowned artists such as Helmi Biese, Anna Boberg, Emily Carr, Prince Eugene, Gustaf Fjæstad, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Lawren S. Harris, Hilma af Klint, J. E. H. MacDonald, Edvard Munch, Ivan Shishkin, Harald Sohlberg, and Tom Thomson.

In addition, works by the contemporary Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen can be viewed, with a new digital installation entitled ​‘Boreal Dreams’. He deliberately addresses the effects of the climate crisis on the ecosystem of the boreal zone by creating virtual worlds based on gaming technology and scientific data collection from field research.

Until 25 May 2025 at the Fondation Beyeler

The raw and the precious: Marisa Merz and Arte Povera

Move over, marble, gold and mahogany: ​‘poor materials’ are coming to the Kunstmuseum Bern. The retrospective Marisa Merz. Listen to the Space presents around 80 works by the only female representative of Arte Povera – an art movement that focused on everyday materials. Merz worked with stone, thread, wood splinters and wire, creating masterful contrasts – she covered the faces she moulded from clay with gold leaf and paint, juxtaposing the raw and the precious.

31 January to 1 June 2025 at the Kunstmuseum Bern

In the mind of Le Corbusier

To mark its 20th anniversary, the Zentrum Paul Klee is transforming itself into a meeting place for fans of art and architecture alike. The museum is dedicating a major special exhibition to the world-renowned Swiss-French architect, artist and urban planner Le Corbusier. His buildings continue to inspire to this day and some of them have been UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 2016. But even massive concrete and steel structures start out as sketches on paper and before that as ideas in the mind of the architect. Le Corbusier. The Order of Things offers insights into the visionary’s creative thinking. On display are iconic works as well as rare designs, sketches and objects that reflect his vision of an ordered, functional world.

8 February to 22 June 2025 at the Zentrum Paul Klee

Nothing is off limits for Carol Rama

From 7 March to 13 July 2025, the Museum of Fine Arts Bern is dedicating a major retrospective to the avant-gardist Carol Rama. Carol Rama: A Rebel of Modernity presents her 70-year career with around 110 works. She encountered social taboos for the first time during her childhood when her parents were admitted to a psychiatric hospital.

As a result, she developed an attitude of resistance to social norms and constraints at an early age, later incorporating this into her art. Rama shows what others shy away from: sexuality, madness, illness and death. Although Rama – like many avant-garde artists – was not widely recognised until much later, her work is now considered a milestone in feminist avant-garde art.

7 March to 13 July 2025 at the Kunstmuseum Bern

Medardo Rosso – modern sculpture

Photographer, rival to Auguste Rodin, master of artistic staging, and a revolutionary in the field of sculpture around the year 1900: the Italian-French artist Medardo Rosso is not nearly as well-known as he should be, despite his great influence. The exhibition hosted by the Kunstmuseum Basel and entitled ​‘Inventing Modern Sculpture’ is a comprehensive retrospective featuring around 50 sculptures and 250 photographs and drawings. It offers an overview of his impressive works, his influence in Milan and Paris around the turn of the century, and the contemporary significance of his art.

From 29 March 2025 to 10 August 2025 at the Kunstmuseum Basel

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