In view of the gaping abyss of the precipitous cliff, the gaze of the man standing on the right is securely focused on the distance, as if he wanted to look into the future . . . Caspar David Friedrich’s painting Chalk Cliffs on Rügen is a true icon of German Romanticism that is part of the permanent collection of the Oskar Reinhart Foundation. After being on loan for exhibitions commemorating the 250th anniversary of Friedrich’s birth in 2024, the masterpiece is returning to its regular spot in the Kunst Museum Winterthur—in a building whose entrance has been redesigned into a welcoming reception space facing the park.

The entire building has been opened up thanks to a radically new restructuring concept that was determined not through a competition for architects but through a process involving interdisciplinary teams from architecture and art. The winning project by artist Ayşe Erkmen and architect Heike Hanada symbiotically combines sculptural and architectural elements to create a minimalist sculpture that visitors can enter. Light figures by artist Koenraad Dedobbeleer provide a playful, sculptural counterpoint. Within the framework of the renovation, several other infrastructural aspects were improved: the museum is now accessible to people with disabilities, several additional rooms were created for the collection, and the lighting was completely updated, literally casting new light on the masterpieces of the Oskar Reinhart Foundation.

The renovation was made possible through the generous support of the City of Winterthur, the Lottery Funds of the Canton of Zurich, and the Foundation of Art, Culture, and History in Winterthur.

In addition to masterpieces of the Oskar Reinhart Foundation and the Jakob Briner Foundation, the reopening celebrates the collection of the Foundation of Art, Culture, and History, from which selected loans have been integrated into the permanent collection to enhance focal points of the collection.

In conjunction with the reopening, Koenraad Dedobbeleer will inserted works of his own into the collection, allowing the museum to decisively embrace the present.

Curated by Konrad Bitterli, Andrea Lutz, and David Schmidhauser