The Castello San Materno Museum-Foundation for Culture Kurt and Barbara Alten in Ascona, Canton Ticino, Switzerland, is hosting the solo exhibition Moonflower by artist Pascal Murer from Sept. 27 to Dec. 28, 2025, with a second installment scheduled for March 5 to April 12, 2026. Curated by Mara Folini, director of the Museo Comunale d’Arte Moderna di Ascona, the exhibition brings together about thirty works including sculptures, etchings, frottage and drawings, highlighting the artist’s deep connection with nature and the subtle energies that pervade its material.
Born in Altdorf in 1966, Murer was formed in a family context immersed in the art of sculpture, frequenting his father Paul’s atelier since childhood. His training was consolidated at the Professional School of Sculpture in Brienz, the Summer Academy in Salzburg and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he deepened his technique with J. Avramidis and Michelangelo Pistoletto. His experience as a technician and assistant at the Vienna Secession enabled him to acquire advanced technical skills, as well as significant art-historical knowledge, which helped define his artistic practice and handling of materials.
Murer’s works are distinguished by an empathetic approach to nature, which the artist first reproduces in schematic form on paper and then concretizes in wood or bronze. The sculptures emerge as if extracted from the natural landscape itself, with the intention of restoring its essential qualities. Each work arises from a process of total immersion, similar to a state of self-hypnosis, through which the artist glimpses the lifeblood of the material and the subtle energies that run through it. In this way, the forms produced take on a germinative character, evoking complex sensory experiences that oscillate between visual and emotional suggestion, invoking a state of harmony and peace.
An integral part of the exhibition is the video installation The Three Faces of Hecate, created by Simon Noël Murer, the artist’s brother and an expert in hypnotherapy. The work is inspired by the Greek goddess Hecate, a triple figure who symbolizes magic, theurgy and necromancy, as well as governing the natural elements of land, sea and sky. The triple nature of the deity serves as a metaphor for a path of awareness and transformation, in keeping with the hypnotic practices developed by Simon Noël Murer to accompany the stages of female life, from youth to maturity and on to wisdom, cycles traditionally associated with the phases of the moon, from which the title of the exhibition originates.
The exhibition, hosted by the Kurt and Barbara Alten Foundation for Culture, represents one of the most comprehensive reviews dedicated to Pascal Murer, offering a broad overview of his artistic language and the research that accompanies his production. The choice of an installation at two different times also allows for a time-dilated experience for the public, enhancing the relationship between the works and the historic space of the castle. The exhibition highlights the continuity between drawing and sculpture in the artist’s practice. The works on paper, often in essential and schematic forms, show the synthesis of Murer’s creative thinking, while the wood and bronze sculptures translate these ideas into concrete objects. The materiality of the works and their ability to integrate into the natural environment refer to a vision of sculpture as a living element, capable of establishing a dialogue with the surrounding space and the viewer.
Murer’s work is also characterized by an accentuated attention to the energetic dimension of forms, with the search for a balance between the tension between matter and immateriality. The works are thus found to carry a sense of rhythm and continuity, calling for sensory perception and an experience that goes beyond mere aesthetic observation. The connection between art and bodily perception, also typical of his brother’s video installation, underscores the centrality of transformation and awareness as recurring themes in the exhibition. The link between Murer’s sculptural creations and Simon Noël’s video installation thus constitutes a conceptual bridge between matter and immateriality, nature and symbolism, allowing us to grasp the depth of the two artists’ research. The lunar element, evoked in the titleMoonflower, acts as a thread throughout the exhibition, suggesting the rhythm of life cycles and the relationship to the subtle energies that permeate the natural and human world.
Pascal Murer, born in 1966 in Altdorf, canton Uri, Switzerland, grew up in a family of artists and was drawn to art from an early age. After completing his training at the Professional School of Sculpture in Brienz, he moved to Austria to specialize with master sculptors Bernhard Prähauser and Josef Zenzmaier, the latter a pupil of Giacomo Manzù, where he learned the techniques of bronze casting. He continued his training at the Salzburg Summer Academy, in the class of Adriena Šimotová, devoting himself to intaglio, and from 1990 to 1995 he attended the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in the sculpture class of professors Joannis Avramidis and Michelangelo Pistoletto.
After graduation, Murer began an intense exhibition activity and collaborated with the Wiener Secession as a technician and art assistant. Stays in Berlin and New York followed, before moving to Locarno in 2001, where he founded Atelier Vedo Arte together with artist Nino Doborjginidze. Since 2002, as an active member of Visarte Ticino, Murer has devoted himself full-time to art, developing a path that includes sculpture, drawing, printmaking and painting. Numerous of his works can be found in private and public collections.
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| Moonflower: lunar symbolism in the works of Pascal Murer in Ascona, canton of Ticino |
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