Segantini's Alpine Sublime at LAC Lugano

The exhibition 'Luce e sublime' at LAC Lugano centers on Giovanni Segantini's monumental 'Trittico della natura' (1896–1899), on loan from the Museo Segantini in St. Moritz. These divisionist canvases—'La Vita', 'La Natura', 'La Morte'—were painted outdoors and left unfinished due to the artist's premature death. Opposite the triptych, a video installation by This Brunner, 'Die Magische Bergwelt' (2012), uses ten screens and a large projection matching 'La Natura' in size, featuring film sequences by Swiss director Daniel Schmid that blend kitsch, folklore, drama, and history. Curated by Cristina Sonderegger and Francesca Benini, the show includes some sixty works tracing landscape painting from the 18th to 21st centuries, with pieces by Turner, Constable, Calame, Hodler, Boccioni, Franzoni, Rossi, Foglia, Burkhard, and Brunner. Contemporary Swiss artists like Lutz & Guggisberg, Monica Studer and Christophe van der Berg, and Not Vital offer ironic takes on Alpine stereotypes, such as digital reconstructions of mountains and bronze snowballs scattered on the floor. The exhibition runs at LAC Lugano, a venue symbolically rooted in the socio-economic uncertainties of Ticino and Switzerland.