Fundaziun Nairs

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The Fundaziun Nair is an art gallery , an artists' house and a culture laboratory in the Lower Engadine main town Scuol .

activity

In its function as an art gallery, Fundaziun NAIRS realizes exhibitions of Swiss and international contemporary art and organizes cultural events and colloquia . As an Engadine cultural center, the Fundaziun NAIRS deals with the culture, the cultural work and the problems of the region. It addresses the cultural self-image of the Engadine and organizes events on the cultural life of the Rumantschia . As part of its international Artists in Residence (AIR) program, the Fundaziun NAIRS sees itself as an artist house. Every summer, it invites 15 to 20 artists selected by a jury to work for several months. The foundation promotes dialogue and cooperation between the various art fields. The focus is on the fine arts . The scholarships are also awarded to creative artists from the fields of music, literature, theater and dance.

The Fundaziun Nairs is based in the bath house built in 1913 . This is part of the historical spa complex in Nairs with the former spa house (today the Hotel Scuol Palace), the Büvetta (drinking hall), a villa, a church and other outbuildings. These buildings represent the heyday of tourism in the beginning of the 20th century and are among the main works of neo-classical architecture with Art Nouveau elements in Graubünden . The bathhouse was placed under cantonal and federal monument protection in 2013. It is one of the 100 buildings worth protecting in the canton of Graubünden.

Director and artistic director since 1999 is the artist and architect Christof Rösch from Sent. Hans-Jörg Heusser - former director of the Swiss Institute for Art Research (SIK-ISEA) - has chaired the foundation since 2011 .

"NAIRS future tense"

The NAIRS Futur Foundation is a non-profit organization with the aim of promoting the dialogue and cooperation between artists from different cultures, different fields of art and science by bringing together the three fields of activity: building maintenance, art gallery, artist house and as a new cultural center.

With the current renovation of its main building, the Fundaziun NAIRS is on the one hand pursuing the rescue and continued use of a cultural monument in year-round operation, because the preservation of cultural monuments in the long term is only possible through functional use. With its international cultural center, NAIRS wants to promote sustainable and qualified individual tourism in the mountain region of the Lower Engadine.

Since 2016, the NAIRS mission will focus on the topic of culture and globalization . In this context, the role of cultural minorities in the age of globalization is discussed. The confrontation with the Romansh culture is thereby placed in an international context.

Partners for NAIRS FUTUR are the Graubünden and federal monument preservation, the Graubünden Foundation for Innovation, Development and Research, the “Pro Engiadina Bassa” region and several Swiss cultural foundations ( Ernst Göhner Foundation , Artephila Foundation, Avina Foundation, Sophie and Karl Binding Foundation , Wolfgang Nägeli Foundation and others).

history

In 1986, the Senn family who owned the Scuol-Palace hotel planned to convert the bathhouse into an artist's house in order to receive another star for their hotel.

The Lower Engadine artist Steivan Liun Könz came across this idea to Henry F. Levy, the founder of the “BINZ39 Foundation” in Zurich, and convinced him to travel to the Engadin to visit the site. As a result, Levy decided to repair the neglected structure. In return, he was given a right of first refusal on the property, a suite in the hotel and the artists could eat in the hotel free of charge. Peter Senn went bankrupt 18 months later, after which Levy bought the house.

For the next ten years, the "BINZ39 Foundation" ran the artist house with 10 studio and sleeping places with annually changing curators. The Künstlerhaus was also understood as a cultural center from the start. In 1998 the sponsorship expanded. The canton of Graubünden and the Lower Engadine region (“pro engiadina bassa”) have recently joined forces with the “BINZ39 Foundation”. Christof Rösch took over the artistic direction from 1999 and brought NAIRS to the general public with a cultural program. This transition phase ended in 2005 with the establishment of Fundaziun NAIRS . Henry F. Levy bequeathed the house to the newly established foundation on condition that it continue to be used for artistic purposes.

The Fundaziun NAIRS expanded its areas of responsibility in the following years and in 2011 the renaming of the cultural center to “NAIRS Center for Contemporary Art” took place. Foundation council president Hans-Jörg Heusser as well as director and artistic director Christof Rösch (since 1999) developed the project "NAIRS FUTUR" together with the foundation council, which in a first step carried out the renovation and refurbishment of the bathhouse built in 1913 and in a second step a new one Operating concept that is to begin in summer 2016.

literature

  • Christian Dettwiler: Culture on the edge of the national park. In: Terra Grischuna 3/2014.
  • Christian Dettwiler: The master of art. In: Terra Grischuna , July 29, 2014. (About Hans-Jörg Heusser, SR President of Fundaziun NAIRS)
  • Daniel A. Walser: Art Basel: The parent fair remains first class. In: Die Südostschweiz , June 20, 2014 (on the relevance of NAIRS).
  • Thomas Kadelbach: Casa di cultura. In: Les Lettres & Les Arts , April / June 2012.
  • Anne Fournier: Loin des Villes. In: Le Temps November 17, 2010.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ All articles available at: nairs.ch