Interview with Sam Keller: 25 Years Fondation Beyeler

Yang Fan: There is no doubt that the Fondation Beyeler is an incredible success. This year it will celebrate its 25th anniversary, as an important participant, from your perspective, what do you think of its development?

Sam Keller: The museum founders had a very clear vision: the Fondation Beyeler should be an open and lively museum that can inspire a broad public for international modern and contemporary art of high quality. A museum that, in addition to intimate personal experiences with art, provides cultural education and offers an ideal place for human interaction and exchange. This approach is as relevant today as it was then, and we continue to try to live up to this vision, adapting and further developing it in a rapidly changing era.

It has its peculiarities, how do you keep attracting so many visitors to the town to visit it?

The Fondation Beyeler is a museum of modern and contemporary art and we are open 365 days a year. It is considered one of the world's most beautiful museums. The museum is internationally renowned for its high-calibre exhibitions, its important collection of modern and contemporary art, as well as its ambitious programme of cultural events. Around half of our visitors are international and many return regularly. They are coming to see great works of art and fall in love with the architecture and the beautiful park and landscape surrounding it.

The Fondation Beyeler perfectly combines art, architecture and nature, apart from art, you also pay a lot attention to architecture and nature. How the idea first came about?

This focus is also rooted in the vision of our founders Ernst and Hildy Beyeler. Our museum building was designed by the renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano and is set within an idyllic park, with old trees and water lily ponds. There are sculptures by important artists like Alexander Calder, Ellsworth Kelly, Thomas Schütte, Jenny Holzer, Philippe Parreno and Fischli/Weiss embedded in the gardens. Visitors can explore and hang out there as well as in the garden restaurant in a historic villa and participate in art workshops in the annex buildings. It boasts a unique location in the heart of a local recreation area, looking out onto fields, pastures and vineyards close to the foothills of the Black Forest. Then and now, it feels like a very holistic approach.

About the current Georgia O’Keeffe’s exhibition, why did you decide to bring her work to Basel?

Georgia O'Keeffe was already celebrated in the USA during her lifetime being the first woman given a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In Europe, on the other hand, she is still little known and often misunderstood. Here, there are hardly any works by her in public or private collections and there have been very few solo exhibitions of the artist in Europe. When one thinks of O'Keeffe, one thinks of her flower paintings. However, many people are not aware that her work was

far more complex and ground-breaking than these flower paintings suggest at first glance. We therefore partnered with the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Thyssen Museum in Madrid as well as the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fee to show this fascinating and highly influential work in a major retrospective. The exhibition is a rare opportunity to experience the extensive work of this important American artist in Europe.

In recent years, the art world pays more and more attention to female artists than ever before. Will you do more exhibitions for female artists in the future? Will you add more female artists to the collection?

We are very pleased that the collection has been expanded in recent years to include works by several important women artists including Louise Bourgeois, Marlene Dumas, Roni Horn, Rachel Whiteread, Tacita Dean, Sarah Morris, Susan Philipsz and Leonor Antunes. Likewise, for some time now, the exhibition programme reflects an increased representation of women artists.

The Fondation Beyeler is still constantly expanding its collection. Which was the most impressive purchase in the last few years? Or donation.

One of my favourite more recent acquisitions is “Snowman”, a work by Swiss artists Fischli/Weiss permanently installed in our park, which is proving incredibly popular with our visitors. “Snowman” illustrates the contradiction between nature and artificiality, displaying the love for the absurd typical of the work of these celebrated Swiss artist duo. Even though, as pointed out by them, a snowman is “a sculpture almost anyone can produce” by simply forming and stacking three snowballs, for its year- round survival the artists’ sculpture relies on a technically complex device to survive in all seasons. The sun which is usually a snowman’s worse enemy in this case provides the energy to keep it alive.

Will you consider adding works by Chinese contemporary artists to the collection in the future? Will the Fondation cooperate with Chinese institutions in the future?

Historically our collection is mostly focussed on art from Europe and the Americas. Artists from Asia have only occasionally been featured in our exhibitions and events. We collaborate with Asian museums and collections mostly on loans of art works but have not yet co-organized exhibitions with or in Chinese institutions. However, we are very interested in art from Asia, which we hope to reflect in our future programming. Because of the pandemic we had to postpone our retrospective of Yayoi Kusama which we now plan to present in a few years.

You were appointed director of the Foundation since 2008. What has been your biggest challenge as director so far?

A challenging but also exciting task for me is to lead the collection and our programme into the 21st century and to accompany the museum on its way from a private museum to an international institution. Keeping alive the spirit and values of the late founders while continuously evolving and innovating to show the relevance of modern and contemporary art for the lives of new generations is a never-ending concern. Our approach is that tradition is not the worshipping of the ashes but the passing on of the fire.

From Art Basel to Fondation Beyeler, your career is closely linked to Ernst Beyeler, what is his biggest influence on you?

Ernst Beyeler was a citizen of the world, who remained true to himself and his roots. His charisma and charm, his sense of quality, his humbleness and humanity were exceptional and left their mark on this museum and on Basel as a city of art. He always looked ahead and was interested in the new while validating what stood the test of time, in art, in people and in nature. We try to continue this enthusiasm and excitement in his spirit. His most important advise to me was to always put art at the center and quality first.

25 years is an important node, what is the Fondation's anticipated plan next?

One major focus lies on the planned museum extension, which we are working on with the Pritzker- Prize and Praemium Imperiale winning Swiss architect Peter Zumthor to further enhance the harmonious interplay of art, architecture and nature. This will be as much a spacial as a conceptional extension providing new platforms for artists, welcoming social spaces for world-wide visitors and members of the local community as well as a friendly habitat for nature. It will make Fondation Beyeler even more unique while connecting us to the world in new ways onsite and online.