In God’s eyes, there are no assholes

Advertising poster outside the Evangelist Methodist church in Zurich.

Kunsthaus Zürich, lights and shadows

Upon becoming a member of the Zürcher Kunstgesellschaft earlier this year, I was surprised to learn that it has over 20,000 members and it is the second largest museum membership program in Europe after that of the Tate in London. This, with a city population of about 380,000 – 1.1m including the suburbs. Which makes Zurich, on a per capita basis, the place with the highest density of paying museum supporters in Europe.

But tonight, leafing through the assoication’s annual report, I found out that in 2008 visitor numbers at the Kunsthaus Zürich dropped to the lowest level in 10 years: only 214,000 visitors (vs. 310,000 in 2007 and the all-time high of 364,000 in 2000, the year of a Cézanne blockbuster). On the one hand, the report says, a few of the 2008 exhibitions (particularly Europop and Rivoluzione! Italian Modernism from Segantini to Balla) fell short of expectations; on the other hand, Zurich and Switzerland hosted a number of Euro 2008 soccer games as well as other competing events supposedly hurting museum attendance. Also, they make they rather unconvincing argument that since the exhibition program stretches over a three-year time horizon, there can be holes that imapct a given year’s numbers disproportionately – if so, we should see a steep rebound in 2009. In the meantime, twenty teams of architects are competing to build an extension to the Kunsthaus, with the winners to be announced in June and construction to be completed by 2015 at a cost of CHF 150 million, half from private sources and the other half committed by the city and the canton.

I have not yet seen any other museum’s 2008 visitor numbers and I don’t know whether the recession has caused other places to lose 30% of their visitors year on year. I would tend to guess, though, that there are places where the media would get at least a good crisis story out of this. Switzerland is probably too distracted by other shock news (unemployment breaking the 5% threshold! UBS announcing layoffs!) to start a conversation about the health of its cultural offerings.

Or, most likely, everybody is waiting for Art Basel in June. Last year’s edition packed 60,000 visitors (myself included) in just five days;  it is the most important commercial thermometer of the art market in the Continent. But with fewer people with serious money to spend, I doubt that even Art Basel will come close to last year’s success.

Zurich police welcomes EuroPride 2009: for “a tolerant and free society”

This is the advertisement supplied by the Zurich police department for publication in the EuroPride-Magazin, in anticipation of the festivities that will run in Zurich from May 2 to June 7.

A spokesman for a local gay group, according to a media report, has commented on the ad saying that it is “etwas klischiert, aber es ist ja Werbung”: a bit of a cliché, but that’s advertising.

The home page of the Zurich police department says that their central preoccupation is “Sicherheit als Grundlage einer toleranten und freien Gesellschaft”:  safety as the foundation of a tolerant and free society. How many of your local police departments have this mission on their home page?

Direct democracy in action, continued: Corine Mauch elected in Zürich

Remember Corine Mauch? She of the Tim Curry hairstyle and wide grin in her electoral mailbox flyers.

Yesterday, she was elected to [the largely ceremonial post of ] Stadtpräsidentin, or mayor, of Zurich.

She is the first woman to be elected to the post, the first one who has played bass in two female rock bands, and the first openly homosexual one.

“Le maire de Zurich est lesbienne… «Et alors?»“, writes the Tribune de Genève.

She deserves, then, another picture in this blog.

Direct democracy in action

I am not yet very familiar with the Swiss political system. Yet,  it has to be one of the few places where you get flyers in your mailbox showing you that you have the option to vote for politicians who remind you of Tim Curry in The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Yoga am Fluss

Who know what’s worth recording in a blog, for the sake of posterity. Or even for oneself, as one tends to forget.

Yet I know this much and I want to remember it:

• Every time I spend an hour practising yoga, things look better afterwards. The winter spleen recedes, the rain looks less bleak, problems feel easier to solve.
• Finding a good yoga teacher is not unlike finding a good shrink, transfert included.
• If you’re looking for classes in Zurich, try Yoga am Fluss by Susan Connor.

From the train window: Fischli & Weiss

If you’ve ever looked outside during the short train ride, to your right shortly before Oerlikon if you’re going from Zurich to the airport, to your left in the other direction, you’ve seen this.

From the Channel 4 Big Art project site:

Fischli & Weiss, How to Work Better (1991)
Painted on the wall of an office building, the artists play with the motivational sayings and strategies of the huge corporations that rule our lives and work. The obvious irony and banal treatment here helps to make a break with the corporate and reclaim the language of ordinary common sense (courtesy Peter Fischli David Weiss and Galerie Eva Presenhuber, Zurich).

The building is apparently used by the Zurich University for the computer science and psychology departments.

The list is actually not bad advice, everything considered.

How to set a beautiful table

True, it was Valentine’s day. Yet, I think I’ve never seen table decorations as festive as the flowers at Petermann’s Kunststuben in Küsnacht, near Zurich. Tulips, peonias, irises, anemones, roses and much more. A delight… and a hint of spring, in the midst of snow.