THE MARTIN KURER COLLECTION
17 JULY – 16 NOVEMBER 2025
VILLA MALPENSATA, SPAZIO MARAINI
Spirit of Simplicity. The Martin Kurer Collection presents an unprecedented dialogue between one of the world’s most important collections of traditional sculptures from the Philippine Cordillera and works of contemporary Asian art collected by the collector. A unique collection of its kind, capable of transcending space, time, and cultures, it offers a profound reflection on the aesthetic and conceptual value of simplicity. The temporary exhibition, curated by Nora Segreto and Paolo Maiullari, is constructed as a journey into the most essential meaning of simplicity, expressed in multiple aspects. Simplicity, in this sense, is understood not as reduction or subtraction, but as a conscious choice of a powerful expressive language.
The five themes around which the exhibition is structured – Colour, Materiality, Spirituality, Stylisation, Minimalism – explore different ways of understanding simplicity. Tradition and contemporaneity come together in a visual and perceptive dialogue that does not seek to force correspondences, but rather to reveal profound analogies, inner tensions and symbolic affinities. In this context, simplicity manifests itself as an attitude of the gaze: an invitation to grasp the essence and allow meanings that go beyond appearances to emerge.
On display are 60 works: 51 from the Ifugao, Kalinga and Bontok peoples of the Cordillera (a mountainous region in the north of Luzon Island) – including anthropomorphic sculptures, ritual containers and everyday objects – and 9 works by six contemporary artists from different Asian countries: Li Shirui (China), Lao Lianben (Philippines), Endō Toshikatsu (Japan), Zhang Lin Hai (China), Somboon Hormtientong (Thailand) and Francisco Pellicer Viri (Philippines).
Their works – characterised by monochrome surfaces, minimalist signs and essential materials – do not seek effect, but essence. It is a language that does not explain but evokes, that does not shout but resonates. All seem to respond to the same inner need: to reduce in order to intensify, to omit in order to reveal.
This tension towards the essential is what animates the vision of Swiss collector Martin Kurer, based in Lugano, whose works belong to AsianArt:Future. Martin Kurer began collecting the art pieces now on display at MUSEC in the late 1990s, during his long stay in the Philippines, and continued to develop his collection over the following years with an increasingly conscious and coherent approach. At the heart of his approach is the ability to recognise, in works from different cultural contexts and eras, a common language based on measure, essentiality and symbolic density. The collection does not seek to classify objects according to chronological or geographical criteria, but to relate them to each other and to the viewer’s gaze. What matters is the echo that each work manages to evoke, its ability to activate an intimate and profound resonance.
The exhibition cycle ‘Altrarti’ is dedicated to an in-depth monographic exploration of the complexity of the values of a particular expression of art and culture. Starting from an interpretation of its form and moving on to an analysis of its meaning, value and context, ethnic artworks are studied from as many perspectives as possible.