The Grand Tour, the extensive cultural tour of Italy, was a frequent occupation among artists and the upper class from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. In his exhibition "Grand Tour" Matts Leiderstam brings our own age in touch with the past.

The Grand Tour, the extensive cultural tour of Italy, was a frequent occupation among artists and the upper class from the seventeenth to the mid nineteenth century. In his exhibition Grand Tour Leiderstam brings our own age in touch with the past. He began work on this project as early as 1996, inspired by the exhibition catalogue Grand Tour – The Lure of Italy in the Eighteenth Century (Tate Gallery, 1996) and the guidebook Spartacus International Gay Guide (1996). Leiderstam's Grand Tour was first shown in connection with the Venice Biennial of 1997. His working method requires him continuously to vary the exhibition, adapting it to fit the physical setting and context, with new works added and others removed. Grand Tour functions as a kind of personal archive for his private researches and can at the same time be seen as an attempt retrospectively to link together his various projects from around the world.

In his art Leiderstam adopts the role of both artist and viewer. By copying or making paraphrases of older paintings he strives in Grand Tour to reveal their hidden undertones and structures. His work lays bare neglected details and offers an alternative interpretation to that of traditional art history. At the same time Leiderstam encourages the viewer to reflect over his or her own viewing as such, and over the role played by the viewer in the exhibition gallery.

On display in this exhibition are both Leiderstam's interpretations of older paintings and books of illustrations of the original works. These images are combined with the exhibition catalogue in form of a home page presented on a computer. Here the visitor can obtain further information. The exhibition also includes various types of image presentation, together with a number of such visual instruments as binoculars and magnifying glasses.

Leiderstam has produced new works for the exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, which have a special reference to paintings in the collection of the Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein.

More pictures to this exhibition

  • Matts Leiderstam
    Exhibition view Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Photo: Stefan Altenburger Photography, Zürich © Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein
  • Matts Leiderstam
    Exhibition view Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Photo: Stefan Altenburger Photography, Zürich © Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein
  • Matts Leiderstam
    Exhibition view Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Photo: Stefan Altenburger Photography, Zürich © Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein
  • Opening
  • Thu, 9.3.2006
    18.00
  • Thu 9.3.

    Opening

    Matts Leiderstam
  • Thu 30.3.

    Lecture

    painting after the end of painting?
    by Konrad Bitterli