Films
Instruments of Perception
A new short film exploring the life and work of Emma Kunz, narrated by Bice Curiger
Ursula presents a new short film exploring the life and work of artist, researcher, poet and healer Emma Kunz (1892–1963), narrated by Swiss art historian and curator Bice Curiger. This is released alongside an exhibition dedicated to Kunz’s visionary drawings at Hauser & Wirth’s art center in Somerset, realized in collaboration with the Emma Kunz Foundation.
From an early age, Kunz was fascinated by phenomena that lay beyond conventional understanding. In 1938, she began creating intricate compositions on graph paper using colored pencils and a divining pendulum. Originally conceived as instruments of research, diagnosis and healing, her drawings reveal a remarkable visual intensity, with lines converging into concentrated focal points and radiating outwards into constellations of color and form. Her investigations also extended into the natural environment, including her discovery of AION A, a mineral substance with healing properties.
Kunz did not consider herself an artist, yet her extraordinary practice has come to hold an important place in the history of modern and contemporary art. Curiger, who presented Kunz’s drawings in a landmark exhibition at Centre Culturel Suisse in Paris in 1992, reflects on how her work challenges conventional distinctions between art, science and spirituality, inviting new interpretations of the limits of human perception.
Installation view, “Emma Kunz,” Hauser & Wirth Somerset, 2026 © Emma Kunz Foundation. AION A benches by Christodoulos Panayiotou. One of six benches created for “Emma Kunz: Visionary Drawings,” Serpentine Galleries, London, 2019. Photo: Ken Adlard
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“Emma Kunz” is on view at Hauser & Wirth Somerset from 7 November 2026 – 4 April 2027.
The Emma Kunz Foundation and Emma Kunz Center in Würenlos, Switzerland, houses the largest collection of her work and supports ongoing research into her practice, offering a space to engage with her work.
Bice Curiger is a Swiss art historian, curator, critic and publisher. Co-founder of contemporary art magazine Parkett, she was a curator at Kunsthaus Zürich, directed the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011, and most recently Artistic Director of the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles. Her extensive curatorial and editorial work has explored artists including Meret Oppenheim, Sigmar Polke, the artist duo Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Pipilotti Rist and Emma Kunz, including exhibitions at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Hayward Gallery in London, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.