BSI Art Collection: Integrating Architecture and Contemporary Art in Lugano and Paris

The BSI, the oldest bank in Ticino, has inaugurated a new building on Lake Lugano that integrates architecture and visual arts. Designed by Giampieri Camponovo, the five-story white cube connects to the baroque Palazzo Riva via a walkway. Each floor is assigned to a different artist: Daniel Buren created the ground floor with colored lines framing windows, visible from outside, where client services are integrated into the artwork. Upper floors feature works by John Armleder (4th) and Liam Gillick (5th), offering vibrant contrasts to the lake view. The BSI Art Collection, founded in 2000 by Luca Cerizza with CEO Alfredo Gysi's support, initially gathered historical works from the 1960s by Buren, Alex Katz, and Mario Merz, later expanding to include postmodern artists like Armleder, Tony Cragg, Peter Halley, Gillick, Massimo Bartoloni, Jonathan Monk, and Bertrand Lavier. In Paris, BSI's new headquarters, inaugurated recently and featured during FIAC, hosts a permanent exhibition curated by Cerizza and Sylvia Paneraï. The exhibition, titled "Ils sont peintres" (They Are Painters), inverts the BMPT group's 1967 slogan "Nous ne sommes pas peintres." It includes works by Robert Barry, Buren, Niele Toroni, Stéphane Dafflon, Lavier, and Manfred Pernice, arranged within the 19th-century building's historic volumes.