The theme is constant: highlights of late 20th and 21st century art from all around the world, provoking awareness and action

The private art collection at The Alpina Gstaad is a thought-provoking roadmap, encouraging engagement with the pieces as well as with the most pressing challenges facing our world today. While the artworks on view are frequently rotated, everything in the collection is engaging, often sparking important discussions, with references to recent and current social issues and movements.

For example, Marc Quinn’s Adiam Yemane (2020) sculpture, from his 100 Heads series of concrete busts of refugees, precursor to his 2021 Our Blood installation in New York. Another is General Idea’s evocative AIDS canvas, which appropriates Robert Indiana’s iconic ‘Love’ image, reframing what it conveys to address the sociopolitical environment experienced by gay men at the height of the AIDS crisis, and which today remains the experience of too many members of the LGBTQ community worldwide.

Other pieces are more playful, such as Thomas Schütte’s Drittes Tier (2017), a 2.6 ton steam-breathing bronze dragon (we named him Fred!), which is installed in the garden; it is always a delight to see children clamber onto his back.

The most recent addition to the collection is Rashid Johnson’s Standing Broken Men (2020). Known for his mesmerizing mixed media and the ability to weave cultural narratives with intimate explorations of identity, Johnson’s work typically evades singular interpretation. This piece is a tessellated surface of mirror and ceramic shards, red oak flooring, soap and oyster shells, at once both a portrait and excavation site. It is one of a series created by Johnson during the Black Lives Matter protests that have catapulted racial justice to the forefront of our global consciousness.

The Alpina Gstaad private art collection intends to provoke and delight, raising questions that lead to awareness, understanding, action, and a path towards positive change.

Everything in the collection is engaging, often provoking important discussions.