Simon Castets / Director of the Swiss Institute, New York |

ON VIEW is a printed and an online section in which Flash Art invites prominent figures of the art world to select the best current and upcoming international exhibitions.

“Making Marvels: Science & Splendor at the Courts of Europe”
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Through March 1, 2020

Hans Straub, Box with lapis lazuli, 1580 ca. Silver, cast, embossed, engraved, etched, and fire-gilt; lapis lazuli, mother-of-pearl (pinctada maxima); set stones; enamel; wood core (limewood, tilia sp.), velvet and flat worm thread. 10 × 13 × 7 in. Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Muzeen de Berlin, Berlin. Photography by bpk Bildagentur / Kunstgewerbemuseum, Staatliche Museen / Art Resource, New York.

This pleasurably dense exhibition brings together hundreds of complex and exquisite objects from the courts of Europe between 1550 and 1750. A selection of automata, musical instruments, clocks, and measuring devices (among many other opulent items) articulate an illuminating position on both the optics of power and our infatuation with technological innovation as a means of knowing the world.

Dhaka Art Summit 2020, “Seismic Movements”
Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka
From February 7–17, 2020

Adrián Villar Rojas, The Theater of Disappearance, 2017. Floor tiles and blocks of brown marble with incrustations of Ammonites and Orthocer fossils, paintings and drawings on walls and ivies and tinted artificial light on glass ceiling. Photography by Jörg Baumann. Courtesy of the artist, Marian Goodman Gallery, New York / Paris / London and kurimanzutto, Mexico City.

This year’s DAS theme — Seismic Movements — considers geological ruptures as an opportunity to reevaluate long-standing positions in art and visual culture. The expansive, masterfully organized exhibition brings together more than five hundred artists, scholars, curators, and writers spanning the entire globe. Perhaps even more impressively, it attracts upwards of three hundred thousand visitors, entirely free of charge.

“No Joke”
Milieu, Bern
Through March 7, 2020

Anna-Sophie Berger, mud coat (1), 2016. Polyester, thread, mud, water. Dimensions variable. Photography by Jonas
von Ostrowski / Prince of Wales München. Courtesy of Emanuel Layr, Wien / Roma; and JTT Gallery, New York.

In the small Swiss city of Fully, a cement relief of a bull bore the spray-painted phrase “Work Hard.” In a gesture of sneering apathy, it has recently been updated by artist Gabriele Garavaglia to read: “Work Hard Sucks.” Such acerbic wit courses through this group exhibition at Milieu, which brings together some of today’s most compelling artists: Anna-Sophie Berger, Lorenza Longhi, Tina Braegger, and Garavaglia himself.