How do you make history come alive? The Museum of Art and History in Geneva decided the best way was to bring in an outsider, inviting esteemed art historian Jean-Hubert Martin to cast fresh eyes on its collection. 

Martin turned his expert eye to millennia of artworks and objects to assemble the exhibition “Draw Your Own Conclusion,” an exuberant excursion through 500 works from every genre (including a handful of loans from several Genevan institutions) that brings together treasures constituting the fascinating diversity of the museum’s collection.

In total, the exhibition is divided into 20 sections, each based on different themes, from the cross to the globe, and from the breast to maternity. Altogether, the show aims to abolish artistic hierarchies while reasserting the primary relationship between the artwork and the viewer, freed from history. 

“This exhibition springs from curator Jean-Hubert Martin’s observation that knowledge accumulated from more than a century and a half, all while advancing art history, has ultimately masked and obliterated the essential vitality of museums: the emotion to which the pieces and objects are able to give rise,” the museum said in a statement. “Specifically, the curator wishes to reconnect with analogical thinking, which dominated during the Renaissance before being overshadowed by Cartesian thinking.”

The exhibition is the second in the museum’s “XL” series, organized by the institution’s director, Marc-Olivier Wahler, in which outside experts are invited to curate shows. 

See images from the exhibition below. 

Installation view “Draw What You See” at the Museum of Art and History, Geneva, 2022. Courtesy of the Museum of Art and History, Geneva.

Installation view “Draw What You See” at the Museum of Art and History, Geneva, 2022. Courtesy of the Museum of Art and History, Geneva.

Installation view “Draw What You See” at the Museum of Art and History, Geneva, 2022. Courtesy of the Museum of Art and History, Geneva.