The Stämpfli Foundation–Contemporary Art presents 75 years of Peter Stämpfli’s creative career with a triple exhibition that covers the past, present and future.
On Saturday, May 10th at 7 p.m., the Stämpfli Foundation – Contemporary Art inaugurates “Narrative Figuration – Empremta 2025 – 1950-2025,” three exhibitions structured around three thematic areas that represent a visual and conceptual synthesis of the main lines that have marked the artistic trajectory of Peter Stämpfli and the Foundation that bears his name.
The exhibition, which will be open to the public starting Sunday, May 11th, is conceived as a celebration of Peter Stämpfli’s 75 years of creation. The show occupies the three galleries of the museum, managed by the Sitges Heritage Consortium, with unique and complementary proposals that allow visitors to explore the different stages of the Swiss artist’s work and his dialogue with other prominent names in European contemporary art.
GALLERY 1 – Narrative Figuration: 15 Years of the Foundation’s Prefiguration
The first gallery recovers the foundational spirit of the Stämpfli Foundation, focusing on one of its main themes: Narrative Figuration, a movement that emerged in France in the 1960s as a critical response to consumer society and the major political and media narratives of the time, within the social context that led to the events of May 1968. The space commemorates the 15th anniversary of the Foundation’s first public presentation of its collection, which took place in April 2010 at the Miramar Cultural Center. That exhibition was a turning point in the cultural project that would eventually be consolidated with the opening of the museum in 2011. Twelve fundamental artists of narrative figuration are represented, all of whom are part of the Foundation’s collection: Antonio Seguí, Bernard Rancillac, Eduardo Arroyo, Erró, Gérard Fromanger, Gianni Bertini, Henri Cueco, Jacques Monory, Jan Voss, Marco Del Re, Peter Klasen, and Peter Stämpfli.
GALLERY 2 – Empremta 2025: A Large-Scale Installation
The present of art and the Foundation is concentrated in the second gallery with the proposal Empremta 2025, a unique work by Peter Stämpfli that covers the entire floor of the space, inviting visitors to immerse themselves in his visual language. With this large-scale installation, the artist revisits the motif of the imprint as a plastic symbol and philosophical concept—an element that has marked much of his work, especially from the 1970s onward. The result is an immersive, physical, and visual experience that offers a new perspective on the exhibition space and the relationship between artwork and viewer.
GALLERY 3 – 1950–2025: 75 Years of Creation – The first works of an emerging artist
The third gallery concludes the journey with an unusual look at the past: a selection of unpublished and youthful works by Peter Stämpfli created between 1950 and 1953, when the artist was just beginning his path. These are sketches inspired by Impressionist masters, preserved until now in private collections, being exhibited for the first time to the public. This collection reveals the origin of a vocation—the moment when painting ceases to be merely learning and becomes a way of life.
With this triple proposal, the Stämpfli Foundation – Contemporary Art offers a comprehensive reading of its own history and reaffirms its commitment to the promotion of European contemporary art.