»The Eye That Listens«

»For me, rooms have always been so beautiful… even when there were no people in them, or perhaps precisely because of that«, the painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864–1916) once said of his often empty and cool-looking interiors, which are classified as part of the complex Symbolist movement. His interior scenes appear as if detached from time—and also from the people who originally created everything within those spaces. The narrative aspect recedes into the background in Hammershøi’s paintings, giving way to a focused and sensitive contemplation of space, light, and atmosphere. Perception itself becomes the subject. The exhibition Vilhelm Hammershøi – The Eye That Listens at the Kunsthaus Zürich is the first major museum exhibition of the painter’s work in Switzerland. It explores the previously neglected significance of music in Hammershøi’s oeuvre; he depicted instruments in many of his paintings and also described them as »arrangements« or »symphonies«. The exhibition runs from July 3 to October 25.

The exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zürich is dedicated not only to Hammershøi’s famous interiors, but also to lesser-known subjects such as portraits, cityscapes, and landscapes. Furthermore, the exhibition situates Hammershøi’s work within a broader art-historical context, featuring individual works by artists such as Jacobus Vrel, Adolph Menzel, and Michaël Borremans.

Vilhelm Hammershøi, known as the »Vermeer of the North«, is one of Denmark’s most significant artists of his time and is regarded there as a national icon. With his reduced color palette and his focus on a narrow selection of motifs, he created a unique body of work whose captivating effect unfolds upon prolonged and quiet contemplation. Hammershøi lived a reclusive life, primarily in Copenhagen, but maintained a lively correspondence with various figures, including the painter James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), whom he greatly admired. During his lifetime, Hammershøi was one of the most famous painters in Europe; after his death, he quickly fell into obscurity outside Denmark. It was not until the late 1990s that he once again gained widespread recognition through numerous retrospectives from New York to Paris to Tokyo. The artist’s first major exhibition in Germany took place in 2003 at the Hamburger Kunsthalle.

This exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.