Museum of Cultures Basel - Collections and Exhibitions

Collections and Exhibitions

In 1844 the museum, still without a permanent home, received hundreds of ancient Mexican ceramics and statues collected by Lukas Vischer of Basel. It remains one of the most notable European collections of ancient American art. Recent exhibitions on Bhutan (1998), Tibet (2001), and Bali (2002) have highlighted the museum's exceptional Asian and Oceanian collections.

With about 300,000 objects and a similar number of historic photographs, the museum is the largest of its kind in Switzerland and one of the biggest in Europe. It also serves the canton of Basel-City by documenting and preserving the local cultural legacy. A 1999 exhibition was devoted to Basel's unique Carnival (Fasnacht) tradition, and the 2005 "Festivals of Light" exhibition explored the city's religious diversity.

The museum's most recent exhibitions have emphasized inter-cultural comparisons and dialog. The 2007-2008 exhibition "Red: Hot on the Trail of a Color" drew on all of the museum's resources to explore the significance of red in human societies.