Based on my interest in the counter-culture of the Sixties, the Monte Verità in Ascona (Ticino) became a central motif for my Swiss exhibtion. Harald Szeemann, in his 1978 exhibition presented the Monte Verità as a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, bringing back the ‘Mountain of Truth’ into the consciousness of the public.

Monte Verità, in the beginning of the 20th century, was the site of an extraordinary utopian community, today seen as the cradle of alternative culture. This was the mountain where a number of advocates of utopia lived, loved, thought and built. They sought refuge from the industrialised culture dominating Northern Europe, in the form of a counter-movement. The aim of the community was the establishment of a society promoting a ‘reform of life’ and it became a centre for the focus on the ideologies of Pacifism, Anarchism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, psychoanalysis, and new religious and spiritual values. They practised heliotherapy, naturism and advocated a symbiosis with nature. Their dwellings were to be liberated houses of light and air and their diet consisted of natural foods.

Many artists, refugees and emigrants have been attracted by this hill, e.g. Hermann Hesse, Carl Jung, Erich Maria Remarque, Hugo Ball, Else Lasker-Schüler, Stephan George, Isadora Duncan, Carl Eugen Keel, Paul Klee, Carlo Mense, Rudolf Steiner, Mary Wigman, Max Picard, Ernst Toller, Henry van de Velde, Fanny von Reventlow, Rudolf Laban, Frieda and Else von Richthofen, Otto Gross, Erich Mühsam, Walter Segal and Gusto Gräser, whose works and presence provided the mountain with a notion of mysticism.

By distilling source material from historic photos, personal snapshots and film-stills, a complex network has been created, which relates to the different rooms of the gallery.