(MENAFN- Swissinfo) One of the most prominent Swiss artists of the past 50 years, Raetz died on April 14, 2020, one month into the national Covid-19 lockdown. His work and memory were mentioned all over the Swiss press, although with no fanfare; internationally his passing went almost unnoticedExternal link .

The subdued obituaries and the impossibility of any kind of public celebration – due to the health restrictions – of Raetz's life and works left a gap which the Bern Museum of Fine Arts (Kunstmuseum Bern) is now attempting to fill. A large retrospective is running until February 25, 2024. Some of Raetz's most well-known three-dimensional artworks are on display next to a spatial installation, Wolke (Clouds, 2020), planned by the artist but never executed.

More than half a century of industrious activity left a broad range of experiments with materials, surfaces and techniques. If one were to define Raetz's work in a word, it would certainly be“perception”. Or, more precisely,“altering perceptions”, but not restricted to the psychedelic exhortations of the term that was all the rage among many of his contemporaries in the 1960s and 1970s.

In fact, he was very much an artist of his time, having also surfed the lysergic waves of the 1960s counterculture. Raetz opened what British writer Aldous Huxley called the“doors of perception” and dove deep into its essential meaning, or the nature of perception. The main question throughout his career, according to his widow, Monika, was:“is this the only way to see things?”

The exhibition in Bern answers this question, artwork by artwork, with a clear“no”.

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