Sâadane Afif, Otto Berchem, Amalia Pica, Andrew Bick, Vanessa Billy, Stefan Burger, Valentin Carron, Chris Cornish, Jose Dávila, Philippe Decrauzat, Svenja Deininger, Lara Favaretto, Fernanda Gomes, Clare Goodwin, Diango Hernández, Herbert Hinteregger, Wyatt Kahn, Jan Kiefer, Alicja Kwade, Haroon Mirza, Timo Nasseri, Walid Raad, David Renggli, Bernd Ribbeck, Michael Riedel, Karin Schwarzbek, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Martin Soto Climent, Esther Stocker, Katja Strunz, SUPERFLEX, Sofie Thorsen, Thomas Vinson, Werner von Mutzenbecher.
7/2-5/5 20419
Curator | Sabine Schaschl
Museum Haus Konstruktiv | Zurich | Switzerland
The exhibition proposes a critical examination of how contemporary artistic practices engage with the legacy of constructivist, concrete, and conceptual art of the twentieth century. Rather than approaching this historical inheritance as a closed repertoire of forms and colors, the project situates contemporary production within a broader dialogue that considers ideas, methodologies, and ambitions associated with those movements, including their structural rigor and, in some cases, their utopian aspirations.
Conceived as a large-scale group exhibition, the presentation unfolds across all four floors of the museum and is structured as a continuous route. This spatial organization allows the viewer to follow multiple strands derived from art history, which are not presented as fixed references but as material to be reinterpreted, combined, and extended. The exhibition framework emphasizes continuity and transformation, highlighting how contemporary works respond to earlier models while asserting their own conceptual and formal autonomy.
The selection brings together works by thirty-four artists from Switzerland and abroad, offering a broad overview of current approaches to constructivist-concrete and conceptual practices. The diversity of positions reflects a wide range of strategies, from rigorous formal systems to more process-based or conceptual investigations. Despite these differences, the works share an interest in structure, order, perception, and the relationship between idea and form, establishing points of connection across generations and contexts.
Rather than proposing a single narrative, the exhibition operates as a multifaceted snapshot of contemporary abstraction and conceptualism. Historical references are embedded within the works themselves, functioning as points of departure rather than as models to be replicated. In this way, the exhibition frames contemporary art as an active field of negotiation with its own history, where inherited visual languages are continuously tested, reconfigured, and expanded.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue that includes critical texts by several authors, along with reproductions of the works and installation views. Together, these materials extend the curatorial proposition beyond the exhibition space, providing additional perspectives on the relationship between contemporary practices and the historical traditions of constructivist, concrete, and conceptual art.