The annual St. Moritz Art Masters will take place this coming weekend, focusing this time on artists hailing from the US. The festival, which lasts ten days and takes place in galleries and venues around the Swiss Skiing town and neighboring villages, picks a different country each year as its focus rather than a curatorial theme. Although St. Mortiz is small, it is home to high-level galleries such as Galerie Gmurzynska, Karsten Greve, and Robilant & Voena, and, since the beginning of the year, also to a new gallery courtesy of Vito Schnabel, who took over the space of storied Swiss dealer Bruno Bischofberger.
The stunning Alpine setting makes the event—which will feature work by David Salle, Albert Watson, and Julian Schnabel—a high point of the summer calendar.
Robert Longo, Guernica Redacted (After Picasso’s Guernica, 1937). Photo copyright Robert Longo courtesy Cahiers d´Art Paris
Highlights this year include The Forum Paracelsus presenting sculpture by Robert Longo and photographs by Richard Avedon, presented by Idea Books; there will be an exhibition of Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and Joel Shapiro at the local church; Robilant + Voena will be showing works by Alexis Rockman, and the Vito Schnabel gallery will be showing works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel, Andy Warhol, and Laurie Anderson.
Andy Warhol Reflected (1982). Photo courtesy of Vito Schnabel Gallery
For last year’s edition the focus was Italy with much work on view from both Italian artists such as Angelo Bozzol, Lucio Fontana, and Piero Manzoni, and artists known to have lived in—and be influenced by—Italy, such as Wifredo Lam.
2017 will mark ten years of St. Moritz Art Masters, in which time the festival has drawn some of the biggest names in the art world to St. Moritz such as Ai Weiwei, James Turrell, Gerhard Richter, and Cy Twombly.
St. Moritz Art Masters will be on view from August 26 – September 4, 2016