A museum without a collection? Is essentially not a museum. After all, artworks are meant to be not only displayed and interpreted, but the act of collecting and preserving is also a key part of a museum’s purpose.

The collection of the Musée Visionnaire had its beginnings around the year 2018. While there were already donations to the museum during its founding, the decision to establish our own collection in a professional manner came later, as we began to gain a clearer sense of where the journey of the Musée could lead. We realized that a collection not only provides added value benefiting the museum, artist, and visitor alike, but ultimately stand as one of the foundational pillars of the institution, Musée Visionnaire.

Furthermore, we started receiving bequests and donations more frequently, allowing the collection to grow slowly but steadily. Today, 374 works are part of the collection, and new additions are made every year.

The collection primarily focuses on Outsider Art and Art Brut, mainly by artists from the canton of Zurich, as well as by artists who have been showcased at the Musée. Additionally, the works of two out of the four artists from the current exhibition Life Happens! are also part of our collection. The drawings by Gertrud Frey found their way to the Musée through collector Max Ammann last year, while the so-called Schnurmalereien, thread paintings by Margrit Schlumpf-Portmann, were displayed in various Swiss Museums, including the Musée Visionnaire, after the artists passing.

With the continuous growth of the collection comes an increasing responsibility. Because collecting isn’t just about an accumulation of art and being able to claim ownership; it’s about preserving artworks for the longer term and keeping them safe – and above all, making them visible. It does not only present us with an issue of space, but also prompts the question of how, where, and when to display them. After all, a new exhibition doesn’t begin every month, and sometimes years can pass before a work is brought back into the light of the exhibition space. To enhance the visibility of our collection, we not only showcase the works at the Musée on Predigerplatz but also in rotating mini exhibitions in the display window at Beatenplatz 2. Currently, artworks by Parzival are on display there – an artist we first brought to the Musée during the Himmelstürmer*innen auf Kurs exhibition in 2019.

Meanwhile, the collection is also accessible digitally – enabling us to do justice to all artists and their works in terms of visibility. The platform ‘kleio’ was specifically created for artwork catalogs and portfolios, providing us with the opportunity to continuously update and digitalize our inventory, our collection, making it more visible to the public and wider world.

By the way, we are happy to lend works from our collection to other museums and institutions.

Here’s the link to the digital collection: https://musee-visionnaire.kleio.com/