The Oskar Reinhart Collection ʻAm Römerholz̕ embarked on its successful series of ‘dossier' exhibitions in 2005. The aim has been to involve certain individual works in current art historical discourse without endangering the integrity of the collection as a unified whole. To combine continuity (presentation of the collection) with innovation (exhibitions) in this way accords with the terms of Oskar Reinhart's donation to the Swiss nation, which forbade the loan of works and made his villa and collection available to the general public as a kind of total work of art.
The exhibitions, mounted at intervals of one or two years, examine a major painting in the collection in its immediate art historical context. This requires only a limited number of loans, but these must be all the more carefully chosen vis-à-vis both the main work and others in the collection. Visitors are thus encouraged to engage intensively with the work at the centre of the exhibition and with the collection as a whole. The focus on a group of closely related works promotes in-depth study of all exhibits, whether items from the permanent collection or loans, and can open up new research perspectives. Each exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue that records the results of the research undertaken and is therefore of lasting value.
