Crans-Montana not only sparks art appreciation in skiers – it’s drawing visitors to the Swiss resort year-round.
In 2014, art dealer Gregory Pages was skiing in his hometown of Crans-Montana in Switzerland’s Valais Alps region.
He took the National Express chairlift and as he neared the huge concrete structure at the top that houses the lift station, three restaurants and a hotel, he had something of an epiphany.
He laughs: “I don’t know why it happened that day. I mean, obviously, I’d done the same trip a thousand times before, but that day I noticed how gross the building was.”
“I was surrounded by sun, snow, blue skies and beautiful mountains and there was this big block of cement in front of me.”
And that was the start of Crans-Montana’s Vision Art Festival (VAF), a festival that truly elevates urban art.
The trend for street art in Europe reaches new heights
I am exploring Crans-Montana with Pages, the founder of the resort’s high-altitude public art project. It is a summer’s day as we climb into the cable car, and we are surrounded by mountain bikers and green meadows rather than bashed pistes and skiers.
But I can immediately see how the brutalist ski infrastructure provides a perfect canvas in wintertime against the white snow.
After getting the nod in 2014 for two initial artworks, one by Hebru Brantley, an artist from Chicago, and the other by ICY & SOT, Iranian activist-artist brothers, the first proper edition of Crans-Montana’s street art festival took place in 2015.
A dozen artists gathered for a week, paint brushes in hand and creativity levels soaring.
The VAF now happens every year in July, when artists take to the streets, carparks, and mountains of Crans-Montana to add new pieces of public art.
But the art can be enjoyed throughout the year with the Vision Art Fund interactive street art map – and you can also book guided tours by foot, ski or e-bike.
The best global street artists in a winter wonderland
“Nearly a decade on, we have over 200 walls and have worked with more than 160 artists from around the world,” says Pages as he reflects on the festival’s development.
Creating public art in the mountains between 1,500m and 3,000m above sea level, naturally, creates logistical challenges: “The most remote piece is located an hour’s hike from the end of the road”, explains Pages. “Every morning, we would do a checklist of what the artist needed because if you forgot something, you were in trouble.”
He continues: “The guys always get so excited to work in nature, but then they can suddenly get freaked. They’re like, ‘Will I be by myself up there? Nobody’s gonna stay with me up there?’”
Today, you can spot artworks on the pistes and in the town centre. An area in a multistorey car park at the bottom of Crans-Merbé-Cry-d’Er cable car is reserved for new artists to showcase their talents.
ADVERTISEMENT“We try to get a mix of talent, so we make the Vision Art Fund a platform for everyone, from local Swiss artists to top-notch guys from China, the States and Australia,” says Pages.
In fact, the project is such a big success that he now receives around 400 requests annually from artists who want to be involved.
Follow a street art map around the streets of Crans-Montana
The collection of art is like a gallery exhibition you can roam through. Only there are no rooms – and it extends into the sky.
As I follow Pages’ street art map with him, we pass by a huge owl in mid-flight, a hungry fox with mouth agape, gargantuan technicolour cats, 3D stalactites, as well as stencilled and collaged scenes, tiny ceramic tiles, and eerie mythical masks.
ADVERTISEMENTAlthough there are so many different styles, mediums, sizes and messages, every piece is related to the local environment and nature.
I wonder how the Swiss, known for their love of order and tradition, have taken to all this modernism.
Pages takes me to see a massive Valais snow lynx on the side of a building, painted in 2024 by Chinese artist Nut. “Most of the feedback I’ve had is from the third generation [Swiss], and they love the public art!” he says with pride.
“One older woman told me how she chooses to take her trash to these bins instead of the closer ones so she can admire the lynx each time.”
ADVERTISEMENTBut it’s not all about the older generation.
When we descend back to town, Pages shows me the Arnouva cable car station, which is decorated with bubble writing and cartoonish figures.
“This is the place where all the beginners queue up in winter, so 60 to 70 per cent of people who pass by here are under 10 years old,” he adds.
Public art benefits the locals as well as tourists in Crans-Montana
In 2022, Pages and his team got local schools involved in VAF. The project saw nearly 1,000 schoolkids collaborating with artists to create new artwork. The only rules were that the artists were not allowed to touch the brush – and that every child in each school got involved.
ADVERTISEMENTPages finishes our tour by showing me the artwork for which he has a particular soft spot.
It’s by an artist from Geneva called Serval, who was one of the first graffiti artists from Switzerland to go to the US. Serval used a painting from an early 1900s collection called Lac de Montana by the Swiss artist Ferdinand Hodler as inspiration for the picture.
Pages explains how the artist tagged his name on one of Hodler’s paintings: “The bit I love about this piece is that I was chatting to a guy in his seventies who still works at the cable car station. He didn’t know that the work was inspired by Hodler, but something about Serval’s artwork reminded him of his father, who had been a big Hodler fan.”
“He was so happy when I explained to him that he was right, that there was a link between Hodler and Serval,” Pages beams. “I found it so cool that he knew the reference from graffiti on a painting that’s over 100 years old.”
ADVERTISEMENTVision Art Fund’s interactive street art map of Crans-Montana is available from visionartfestival.com