Exhibitions
The Foundation regularly lends artworks for exhibitions organised in Switzerland and abroad.
Without its own exhibition space, the Foundation makes its collections visible through an open and dynamic lending policy. Its works are featured in most major exhibitions incorporating textile art, both in Switzerland and abroad. You will find a comprehensive list below.
Commissioned
Lausanne, mudac Musée Cantonal de Design et d'Arts Appliqués Contemporains
Times in Tapestry: Goshka Macuga x Grayson Perry x Mary Toms
On the occasion of their respective twenty-fifth anniversaries, Fondation Toms Pauli and mudac explore tapestry as a vector of storytelling and propaganda by presenting a selection of exceptional works, remarkable both for their expressive power and their monumental scale. Through a dialogue between baroque wall hangings from the Mary Toms Collection and contemporary tapestries by Goshka Macuga and Grayson Perry, Times in Tapestry presents the medium as a mirror of political and social intentions, and as a tool for critical commentary. By confronting ancient and contemporary works, Times in Tapestry highlights the timeless power of tapestry: through its rich visual language it has the capacity to convey complex messages and spark reflection on universal issues.
A publication, with contributions by eight authors who address tapestry as a narrative medium from different perspectives, accompanies the exhibition. It is presented in a boxed set together with 23 loose-leaf plates of the monumental works displayed at Times in Tapestry: Goshka Macuga x Grayson Perry x Mary Toms.
Times in Tapestry: Goshka Macuga x Grayson Perry x Mary Toms
Works on loan
Tilburg, TextilMuseum
Magdalena Abakanowicz - Everything is made of fiber
Die Fondation Toms Pauli besitzt den größten Bestand an Werken von Magdalena Abakanowicz außerhalb Polens und freut sich, dass mehrere Wandteppiche, weiche Skulpturen und Installationen der Künstlerin in bemerkenswerten Ausstellungen gezeigt werden, wie z. B. derzeit im Textilmuseum Tilburg mit acht historischen und unverzichtbaren Leihgaben.
Abakanowicz - Everything is made of fiber - TextielMuseum
Works on loan
Lausanne, mudac Musée cantonal de design et d'arts appliqués contemporains
Soleil.s Solar Biennale 2
At the heart of an exhibition that brings together designers, artists, curators and scientists to explore the issue of solar energy, a rooster by Jean Lurçat heralds the sunbeams of a new dawn.
Works on loan, Collaboration
Zürich, Museum für Gestaltung (Ausstellungstrasse)
Manifestes textiles - du Bauhaus à la soft sculpture
Die Ausstellung Textile Manifeste lässt Materialien und Techniken miteinander in Dialog treten und stellt das Textilmedium als «umfassende sinnliche Erfahrung». Die Fondation Toms Pauli stellt elf Leihgaben zur Verfügung, darunter Stickereien von Lissy Funk und Werke von Helen Frances Gregor, Kazimiera Gidaszewska, Lia Cook, Shigeki Fukumoto und Sonia Delaunay, die sich alle auf unterschiedliche Weise mit der Textilkunst in ihrer ganzen Vielfalt auseinandersetzen.
Textile Manifeste – Von Bauhaus bis Soft Sculpture | MfGZ
Works on loan, Collaboration
Lausanne, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts
Alice Pauli. Gallerist, Collector, Art Patron
A prominent figure on the Lausanne arts scene and an amazing personality, Alice Pauli was closely connected with tapestry and with Fondation Toms Pauli. In this major exhibition that pays tribute to her, those special connections are illustrated in the Fondation’s loans to the MCBA. Among the more than 130 pieces on display, there are ten works by artists, Alice Pauli had either supported or was close friends with, such as Jean Lurçat, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Jagoda Buić, Wojciech Sadley, Maria Łaszkiewicz, Sheila Hicks and Mariette Rousseau-Vermette.
Alice Pauli. Gallerist, Collector, Art Patron – MCBA
Works on loan, Collaboration
Paris, Fondation Cartier pour l'art contemporain
Olga de Amaral
The Paisaje de calicanto y rocas tapestry by the Colombian artist Olga de Amaral, is presented in a minimalist setting, playing on the building’s transparency and the garden outside. Loaned by Fondation Toms Pauli for this ongoing, highly successful retrospective exhibition, the tapestry is a perfect representation of the poetic universe of this internationally acclaimed major textile artist.
Works on loan, Collaboration, Commissioned
Lausanne, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts
Magdalena Abakanowicz. Textiles Territories. Homage to Elsi Giauque
Exhibition organised by Tate Modern, London, in collaboration with the Fondation Toms Pauli at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne and Henie Onstad, Oslo.
Curated by: Magali Junet, Curator, Giselle Eberhard Cotton, Director, Fondation Toms Pauli; Ann Coxon, Curator International Art, Tate Modern, Mary Jane Jacob, Independent Curator.
The Magdalena Abakanowicz. Textile Territories exhibition traces the early stages of the international career of Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930 - 2017), a prominent textile and sculpture artist of the second half of the 20th century. From 1962 a major figure of the Lausanne International Tapestry Biennials, Abakanowicz shaped the landscape of the New Tapestry movement for twenty years, throughout the 1960s and 1970s, with her very personal output that focused on the use of organic fibre, that is a living and malleable material.
Lausanne played a key role in the development of the Polish artist’s career and personal contacts thanks to the Tapestry Biennials, the exhibitions organised by Pierre and Alice Pauli, and local collectors.
The Tate curators’ selection of works for the exhibition Magdalena Abakanowicz: Every Tangle of Thread and Rope was reviewed for the Lausanne venue and has been augmented by twenty-five works from the Fondation Toms Pauli Collection and some lenders from the French-speaking part of Switzerland.
The foundation also pays tribute to the Swiss artist, Elsi Giauque (1900 - 1989), another leading player at the Lausanne Biennials, with a dedicated room displaying her light and colourful works.
Magdalena Abakanowicz. Territoires textiles.
Works on loan, Collaboration
Zurich, Museum für Gestaltung (Ausstellungsstrasse)
Textiler Garten
The summer exhibition of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich is devoted to the Nouvelle Tapisserie movement. Textile Garden brings together, in an atmospheric scenography, some sixty works from the Sixties to the present day. It provides a unique opportunity to see the two most important Swiss textile-art collections under one roof.
Textiler Garten exhibition and Trailer «Textiler Garten» - YouTube
Carte blanche
Lausanne, Plateforme 10, arcades 2 et 3
Railway Spine, Sophie Bouvier Ausländer
In the connection with the inauguration of the Plateforme 10 Arts District and the Train Zug Treno Tren, exhibitions, the Lausanne artist Sophie Bouvier Ausländer, is presenting Railway Spine. The work is designed in three sculptural sequences and conjures up both the traumas of train accidents in the 19th century and those of modern-day life.
At the invitation of Fondation Toms Pauli et Plateforme 10
Works on loan
Geneva, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum
Espace Focus
Red Abakan III, the enigmatic woven sculpture by Magdalena Abakanowicz (1930-2017), will be on view until spring 2022 at Espace Focus, International Red Cross und Red Crescent Museum. The loan was requested by the Museum in the context of their annuel theme « Gender & Diversity ».