With its collection of works of art and cultural-historical objects, the Nidwalden Museum documents the art and cultural history of the canton of Nidwalden. In addition to interesting permanent exhibitions, this year's exhibition program will again focus on three to four temporary exhibitions with selected Nidwalden themes.
Philipp Dommen|Torhild Grøstad "Trace and Memory"
The Nidwalden Museum invites the Norwegian-based artists Philipp Dommen and Torhild Grøstad to Central Switzerland - Philipp Dommen's home country - for an exhibition project. In their artistic work, both Torhild Grøstad and Philipp Dommen are strongly oriented towards nature and the influence that humans have on it. The exhibition, entitled Trace and Memory, focuses on the ambivalence between man and his environment. The focus is on the tension between inner and outer landscapes - a poetic expression of the connection between human existence, nature and the body. Within a dialogical juxtaposition, the graphic works of Torhild Grøstad and the sculptures of Philipp Dommen offer both critical and humorous perspectives on the relationship between man and his environment. Co-curation: Michael Sutter and Jana Avanzini
February 22 to June 8, 2025
above: Torhild Grøstad, On the same path, detail, 2024 bottom: Philipp Dommen, Red runner, detail, 2024
"A garden is a garden is a garden"
Group exhibition with works by Elvira Bättig, Brigham Baker, Sabian Baumann, Alexandra Baumgartner, Quynh Dong, Klodin Erb, Roberta Faust, Nils Amadeus Lange & Mario Petrucci Espinoza and Felix Stöckle.
In Alice in Wonderland, the garden appears twice: carefully tended and clearly laid out, it reflects the human world at the beginning as a rigidly ordered and controlled place. In the dream world, on the other hand, Alice enters a wild place with unknown and whimsical fauna and flora that seems to promise endless possibilities and surprises. Stories like Alice in Wonderland certainly visualize the promising nature of a garden. But they also refer to the broad spectrum of the garden as a metaphor for the constant negotiation of the question of our relationship to nature.
The observation of nature, its diversity and its capacity for continuous change plays a central role in the work of Brigham Baker, for example. As an amateur beekeeper and urban gardener, he integrates plants and microorganisms into his works and thus refers to a temporality that outlasts the finished work. Aspects of change and transience can also be found in Roberta Faust's photographs. They show extinct plants that appear like reawakened beings and playfully raise questions about museum preservation. How can we be connected to our environment and nurture it for our needs while at the same time interfering with its natural course, destroying and exploiting it? The artists in the exhibition take up the concept of the garden as a cultivated piece of land and question it as a social and cultural construct. Their works open up different perspectives on our ambivalent relationship with nature, which is characterized by care, control or destruction.
June 28 to October 5, 2025
Maude Léonard-Contant, How the Heat Wilts my Silks, 2024, photo: Giulio Boem
Maude Léonard-Contant "gathering"
Maude Léonard-Contant has been selected for the Frey-Näpflin Foundation's 2024 work year. The scholarship supports artists with a connection to Central Switzerland and is linked to an exhibition at the Nidwalden Museum and a publication. Maude Léonard-Contant's works, which were created during the year of work, deal with gratitude and mourning. They create a space of togetherness where the existence and loss of habitats and living beings are celebrated and mourned. In the Winkelriedhaus pavilion, the artist is showing an installation floor work and objects that are closely linked to her adopted home of Central Switzerland and her country of origin, Canada. In collaboration with the Entlebuch charcoal burner Doris Wicki, Maude Léonard-Contant has burned wood from trees that have fallen in storms - weakened by increasingly hot summers - into fragile charcoal objects. The artist combines them with materials that are meaningful to her, such as sweet grasses, ceramics, photochromic glass, ash, matcha tea, lime, salt lick and text. Many of them change their state under the influence of heat and sunlight. The only certainty lies in the transformation that the installation and objects undergo: everything passes and changes. Curation: Bettina Staub, Nidwaldner Museum
October 25, 2025 to February 1, 2026
Maude Léonard-Contant, detail of the installation gathering, ash, coal powder, white sage, lickstone, coal © Maude Léonard-Contant
SUMMER AT THE MUSEUM 2025
Towards the end of the summer vacations, the Nidwalden Museum invites visitors to the Winkelriedhaus and its garden for three weeks. The varied program of events in the secluded courtyard and in various rooms offers talks, music and performances. In the cozy summer bistro you can linger over food and drink.
August 20 to September 7, 2025
KUNSTANS
The Art and Culture Association is once again organizing the art market in the Winkelriedhaus with over 30 renowned artists from all over Central Switzerland. The artists are present in person and present their current work. This year, participants will be selected with the advisory support of art historian Beat Stutzer.
September 6, 2 p.m. to 6 p.m. www.vekultur.ch
