Artists

Nanna Kaiser, Signe Ralkov, Annael Shavit, Gaia Del Santo, Henri Chetaille, Jaakko Uljas, Jürgen Baumann, Padyn Humble, Tekla Kighuraze

Press release

The trigger for this exhibition is, essentially, that my brother's favourite horse was recently processed into salami. Rest in peace, Brown Beauty. The second, and real, reason is that Gustav and Leon from bendingwords are letting me use their office. Thank you.

As for the title: « La Bride » can be read in both English and French. The two meanings have, at first, nothing to do with one another, and the observation is probably just a coincidence. And yet, from the tension, one can draw out shared questions of control, power, and desire. Should these elements surface in the works, anyone who wishes is welcome to follow them.

Let me borrow a few pages from Erich Fromm's « To Have or To Be? » to understand this better. In it, two poems are set against one another, each reflecting a different stance toward possessing knowledge.

First, one by the nineteenth-century English poet Tennyson:
Flower in the crannied wall,
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,
Little flower—but if I could understand
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.

Then Basho's haiku, which in translation runs more or less like this:
When I look carefully
I see the nazuna blooming
By the hedge!

(nazuna is a flower)

Rather than examining the works gathered here for common ground and thereby uprooting the flower, and ultimately killing it — you — are — warmly — invited — to — look — carefully.

Considering that the practices gathered here come from Berlin, Copenhagen, Zurich, Winterthur, Tbilisi, Vienna, Helsinki, and Paris, it soon becomes clear that looking carefully is the only way to approach the works.

But yes, the exhibition is also about horses.