The Museo delle Culture was created in 1989 thanks to the donation of Serge Brignoni’s collection of ethnic art. The genres and geographical origins of the works in the Collection reflect those most common in European, Australian and North American collections of the mid-20th century, and hardly any ‘pieces’ of what were considered the must-have collectibles of the time are missing. Most of the works come from the Far East, India, South-East Asia, Indonesia and Oceania.

In order to understand the reasons that led the Ticino artist to collect thousands of works from regions and cultures on the other side of the world throughout his life, it is necessary to delve into the artist’s biography and to investigate the dense network of relations that he maintained from the mid-1920s onwards with exponents of the Parisian avant-garde, in particular with the French Surrealist movement. Brignoni’s passion for ‘primitive’ art was in fact born as a result of his contact with the Parisian environment.

The works in the Collection are the expression of a refined choice that privileges the best executed artefacts. On the whole, Brignoni’s taste leaned markedly towards works of a sculptural nature, and it is worth emphasising his sensitivity in his very particular choice of exclusively wooden sculptures, marked by expressionistic content and creative methods and characterised by a particular richness of design and pictorial decoration. An accurate study of the Brignoni collection, conducted by the Museum’s researchers, resulted in the publication of two scientific catalogues available in Italian and English.

Works from MUSEC’s Brignoni collection have been exhibited on several occasions in various museum venues, such as the Quai Branly in Paris and the Rietberg in Zurich. With the relocation of MUSEC to Villa Malpensata, only some of the masterpieces from the Brignoni Collection are now exhibited in the Spazio Tesoro, but they are often an essential part of thematic temporary exhibitions.

In 2018, the Kunstmuseum Bern donated to the museum 25 masterpieces of ethnic art from Indonesia, Oceania and Africa, which had belonged to Serge Brignoni and had until then been kept at the Musée d’Ethnographie in Neuchâtel. In fact, at the end of 1998, the Swiss artist and collector decided to donate part of his collection to the Bernese museum. With great generosity and a spirit of cooperation, the Kunstmuseum allowed an important reunion with the larger nucleus donated by Brignoni to the City of Lugano in 1985.