ARTISTS
Verso: Tales from the Other Side
Have you ever wondered what might be hidden on the back of a painting? In Verso, the flipside of artworks from the 14th to the 18th centuries will be on view, offering a chance to see the concealed sides usually visible only to curators and conservators.
The exhibition shines a light on the lives of artworks before they came to hang on museum walls, showing traces of their circulation in other contexts and their different functions. Find winged altarpieces, painted on both sides so that they could be displayed differently throughout the liturgical year, and coats of arms that were discretely attached to the backside of objects by their owners, or painted panels that had been simply turned over and reused. There鈥檚 even a double-sided advertising panel made by Ambrosius and Hans Holbein the Younger as well as paintings specially designed to be picked up and turned over. Verso thus offers new perspectives on artworks, not just by famous names such as Hans Baldung (also known as Grien), Lucas Cranach, and Konrad Witz, but also others that deserve a second look.
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Have you ever wondered what might be hidden on the back of a painting? In Verso, the flipside of artworks from the 14th to the 18th centuries will be on view, offering a chance to see the concealed sides usually visible only to curators and conservators.
The exhibition shines a light on the lives of artworks before they came to hang on museum walls, showing traces of their circulation in other contexts and their different functions. Find winged altarpieces, painted on both sides so that they could be displayed differently throughout the liturgical year, and coats of arms that were discretely attached to the backside of objects by their owners, or painted panels that had been simply turned over and reused. There鈥檚 even a double-sided advertising panel made by Ambrosius and Hans Holbein the Younger as well as paintings specially designed to be picked up and turned over. Verso thus offers new perspectives on artworks, not just by famous names such as Hans Baldung (also known as Grien), Lucas Cranach, and Konrad Witz, but also others that deserve a second look.
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The 鈥淰erso鈥� exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Basel shows paintings from the 14th to 18th centuries, all from the museum鈥檚 collection. What makes it special is that it also takes a look at the reverse side of these paintings.
This video documents the guided tour of the exhibition 鈥淰erso 鈥� Tales from the Other Side鈥� by curator Bodo Brinkmann at Kunstmuseum Basel on the occasion of the press preview.
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