The Swiss Institute for Art Research (SIK-ISEA) offers a unique wealth of scientifically sound information on historical and contemporary Swiss art as Open Access on the Internet. These online services include the four-language "SIKART Lexicon of Art in Switzerland" (www.sikart.ch), various electronic catalogues raisonnés of prominent Swiss artists and digitised documents from the Swiss Art Archives. The site www.sik-isea.ch/de-ch/Rechercheportal provides an overview of all SIK-ISEA online content and allows direct access to the individual sections.
SIKART Lexikon zur Kunst in der Schweiz (www.sikart.ch) is SIK-ISEA's online information system on historical and contemporary art in Switzerland, which is editorially supervised, updated daily and richly illustrated. SIKART offers combined queries on artists, works, exhibitions, literature and awards. Today SIKART contains more than 17,000 entries on current and historical artists with around 1,700 detailed biographical articles in the three national languages German, French and Italian as well as in English translation and around 20,000 illustrations of works. The scientific editorial staff of SIKART, based in Zurich, Lausanne and Ticino, regularly produces new articles on people and topics. In the case of historical artists, it focuses primarily on new research results. In the case of contemporary artists, the reception in the art world is reflected.
SIK-ISEA provides six electronic catalogues raisonnés on Swiss artists as open access. These catalogues raisonnés deal in detail and systematically with the works of Eva Aeppli (1925-2015) (www.eva-aeppli.ch), Cuno Amiet (1868-1961) (www.cuno-amiet.ch), Aloïse Corbaz (1886-1964) (www.aloise-corbaz.ch), Martin Disler (1949-1996) (www.martin-disler.ch), Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) (www.ferdinand-hodler.ch) and Niklaus Manuel (c. 1484-1530) (www.niklaus-manuel.ch). In addition to printed editions or in purely electronic form, SIK-ISEA's electronic catalogue raisonnés enable complex searches and innovative viewing options for individual objects using deep zoom, map module or cross-fades with art-technological images.
The electronic catalogue raisonné of the sculptural work of Markus Raetz (born 1941) (www.markus-raetz.ch), the illustrations of Félix Vallotton (1865-1925) and the paintings of Augusto Giacometti (1877-1947) are currently being compiled (www.augusto-giacometti.ch).
With the online reference work www.biennale-venezia.ch SIK-ISEA provides detailed information on Switzerland's participation in the Venice Art Biennale since 1920 as Open Access. In addition to the participating artists, this continuously updated application also offers the works exhibited, commission members, literature and documentary recordings.
From the collections of the Swiss Art Archives, SIK-ISEA publishes online digitised archival materials such as letters, sketches and documentary photographs of important players in the Swiss art scene.