The museum has a collection of more than 10,000 pieces, since 1816. Many are by Swiss artists, including Giacomettis, father and son.. When I visited, one floor featured a large, temporary exhibition of more than 100 paintings by the Swiss painter Gustav Buchet, an important figure in the Swiss avant-garde movements of the early 20th century. However, I was fascinated by the more realistic paintings of François Bocion, who often painted working boats along Lake Geneva in the 19th century. Bocion is obsessed with capturing the elusive beauty of light in water, and his obsession is our reward.
The museum is not strictly parochial, though. It also owns and exhibits boldface names, too: Degas, Renoir, Cézanne and Rodin, and there is an exhibition of a pioneer of textile art, Magdalena Abakanowicz, until late September.
The latest addition to Plateforme 10 covers the far side of the plaza: a massive white hut, its only windows visible where the hut seems to have been broken. The building was designed by Portuguese architects Francisco and Manuel Aires Mateus and opened in June 2022, along with the plaza. The hut contains two other museums of the quarter, the Picture Elysée, canton museum dedicated to photography; and Mudac, its museum of design and contemporary applied art.
Inside, the ground level of this massive block manages both solidity and a tent-like air. Downstairs, an interactive photography studio is museum education at its best: Visitors can dress up in props, take digital photos and then edit them on a light table — all to teach of framing and composition concepts.
Photo exhibitions are at their best in the Elysée’s contribution to a district exhibition on trains in art, showing pictures by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Nan Goldin and others. Many images recalled how trains represent escape and adventure, but also a Hail Mary for the desperate. The black-and-white shots of war refugees piling onto trains, taken 70 years ago, look like they were taken last month.
