UBC January 2025 - Bad RagARTz

My dear blogging friend Kebba left me the following comment on the first post of this UBC:

"I think I keep up with your wonderful posts very well, during the year. But I had totally missed the sculpture garden, and that's my favorite image."

I promptly checked my blog posts from last summer, and what do you know?  

The reason why the sculpture looked unknown to Kebba is that I actually never got around to blogging about this visit, which is a shame and will be rectified with this very post!

What is "Bad RagARTz"?

First of all, the name of one of the largest open-air sculpture exhibitions in Europe, is a wordplay. 

The main town where artists get to display their sculptures, is called Bad Ragaz, and "Bad", which is German for bath(room), in this context stands for spa town, where you can relax in the 36.5° Celsius (97.7° Fahrenheit), warm thermal water, unwind with a soothing wellness treatment or treat yourself to a delicacy in the park café.

So they turned Bad Ragaz into Bad RagARTz, as in Art. This extraordinary event took place for the 9th time between May and October 2024. 

In addition to the main location in Bad Ragaz, art objects were also exhibited in the neighboring village of Maienfeld and in the somewhat more distant Vaduz, which is the capital of the Principality of Liechtenstein. More about these locations later.

First of all, we went there on a weekday to avoid the crowds, and we took the train to avoid traffic and trouble finding parking.

When I say "art objects were exhibited in the village" that's literally the case. The first thing we saw was this wooden "chain" on a restaurant's patio. It was Monday, and the restaurant was closed, as it is often the case in smaller Swiss towns. What do I mean by small? Bad Ragaz has fewer than 7,000 citizens. 

This concept of embedded art was evident again and again on our way from the train station to the town center. 

We were often unsure whether something was "deliberately placed art” or simply a decoration of the store, like this “mannequin” made of flowers.

The 88 different artists also got to make use of existing structures, such as this fountain.

Or a rooftop!

There was a motto for the 2024 edition of the exhibition, namely “Present”. And as is the case with art, as a layman it is difficult to see a connection between a sculpture and a title, but personally I don't mind. I either like the object or I don't. 

For example, the white marble thing appealed to me more than the “people” in the background. 

This park, which is part of the spa center grounds, was the most crowded area of the exhibition, and we waited to take photos until most of the visitors had left for lunch. 

Speaking of lunch. This is where we ate... Always half-expecting the person to jump ;-)

Can you believe this gorgeous June day, by the way? When posting on social media I like to use #bluesky, and it sure was a perfect day for it. 

For this particular picture I may have applied #lemon ;-)

If I had to pick a favorite object, this globe would probably be it.

Turns out this is a larger version of a different kind of object the artist Joel Schneebeli made a few years ago: A coin-operated machine called "Money makes the World go round", perfect title! You can watch a short video here.

As I was saying, there were two other locations that also exhibited objects, and one of them is Maienfeld. In Johanna Spyri's novel Heidi, it is the place where the protagonist arrives in Switzerland. Surrounded by vineyards, the village of Maienfeld lies at the foot of the Falknis, a popular mountain in the region. 

By now we had seen enough art, but we still had something on our list that we wanted to visit, and it was Salenegg Castle, the oldest winery in Europe. I mean, hello, is this scenic or what?

This concluded our what I called "Mother's Day Field Trip", and Mom and I made our way home.

Weeks later, Colin's pre-season preparations had already begun, we were back in the region, and we had left early enough to have time to visit Vaduz. 

There was a “mirror cube” by Gustavo Velez that I really wanted to see. 

The experience in the Principality of Liechtenstein was completely different from the lively spa town of Bad Ragaz, where many art objects were embedded in the existing squares and corners of the village. 

Admittedly, it was still early on a Sunday morning. 

The traffic-free pedestrian zone seemed very sterile. But yes, it certainly passed for an "outdoor museum!"

I'm glad Mom and I didn't take the time-consuming detour back then. The overall feeling was somewhat depressing. I mean, look at the poor rhino and the sad looking faces with a backdrop that reminds me of a prison yard - not that I have seen one in person - oh, wait, I have! 

This walking car made me chuckle though. But where was my mirror cube, the reason I wanted to come here for?

Here's something mirror-y - it must be from the same artist, Gustavo Velez, the one that Kebba also likes! We must be close...

Sure enough, there it was! It looked beautiful and classy, but I couldn't help but think it would have looked better in Bad Ragaz's lush park, with the blue sky and mountains in the background. 

Now it's time to wait for the next Bad RagARTz, which takes place every three years.

What do you think? Did you pick a favorite exhibit? Would you like to visit in 2027?