Kaarel Kurismaa: Intermezzo
February 7–May 25, 2026
Zürich CH-8005
Switzerland
Kunsthalle Zürich is pleased to announce new exhibitions by Niloufar Emamifar and Kaarel Kurismaa.
Niloufar Emamifar: Offcut
February 7–May 25, 2026
Offcut is the first institutional solo exhibition by Niloufar Emamifar in Switzerland. Developed on site, the exhibition is conceived as a spatial syntax articulated through indeterminacies of scale, proximity, and endurance.
The exhibition centers around an architectural adjustment that raises the floor of Kunsthalle Zürich by a few centimeters. Finished with a black sprung surface as customarily used by Ballet Zürich, this elevated plane functions both as a discrete piece and a spatial recalibration through which a series of new works unfold.
Niloufar Emamifar is an artist based in New York. Her work has been exhibited at institutions including Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2023); Kunstverein Kevin, Vienna (2023); MoMA PS1, New York (2022); The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2022); SculptureCenter, New York (2021); the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2021); the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2020); Human Resources, Los Angeles (2019); Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (2017); and the Venice Biennale of Architecture (2016). Her most recent solo exhibition was Disjecta at Progetto, Lecce, Italy (2025). She has participated in programmes including the Whitney Independent Study Program; the Capp Street Fellowship at the Wattis Institute, San Francisco; the Core Residency Program at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Amant Foundation, New York; and the London College of Communication. Emamifar holds a BFA in Architecture from Soore School of Architecture, Tehran, Iran, and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of California, Irvine.
Niloufar Emamifar's exhibition is made possible thanks to the support of SüdKulturFonds.
Kaarel Kurismaa: Intermezzo
February 7–May 25, 2026
Intermezzo is the first institutional solo exhibition by Tallinn-based artist Kaarel Kurismaa (b. 1939, Pärnu, Estonia) outside his native country. The exhibition centres around a selection of kinetic sound sculptures that Kurismaa developed in the late 1990s, which are now exhibited in dialogue for the first time.
Kurismaa is best known for his kinetic objects, which he began producing in the mid-1960s from mass-produced objects such as found furniture, kitchen utensils, and electronic motors. Having not gained entry to the music academy in Tartu in 1957, he enrolled in the city’s art school and a few years later studied large-scale painting at the State Art Institute in Tallinn. While still a student, Kurismaa worked as an artistic decorator for Tallinna Kaubamaja, the first large self-service store in Soviet Estonia, which opened in 1960 and was modelled after Western chains. This retail work allowed him to experiment with readymade materials and industrial forms. It was in this context that his first sculpture, fashioned out of a fireplace grate and kitchen utensils, emerged in 1966 – a work that is acknowledged as the first kinetic object in Estonian art history, though it has since been destroyed.
Amidst the stagnation of the 1970s – a time of ideological rigidity and cultural suppression at the height of the Soviet occupation which had begun in the 1940s – the arts in Estonia, and the avant-garde in particular, were under intense scrutiny. Kurismaa shifted his focus towards commissions for art in public space and also worked as a set designer and director at Tallinnfilm, the oldest film studio still in existence in Estonia. Following the Soviet Union's collapse and the loosening of its grip on the Republics of the Soviet Union in the mid-1990s, Kurismaa returned to focussing on his own practice, developing increasingly large-scale sculptures at the intersection of sound, kinetics, and installation.
Kaarel Kurismaa works with sound, sculpture, painting, design and kinetics. His works have been presented in solo exhibitions at Tartu Art House, Tartu; Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn; Retretti Art Museum, Punkaharju, Finland; and Temnikova & Kasela Gallery, Tallinn. His works have also been part of numerous group exhibitions, including the 15th Baltic Triennial: Same Day, Vilnius (2024); the Halle für Kunst Steiermark, Graz (2021); Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow (2018); the Akademie der Künste, Berlin (2018); SALT Galata Gallery, Istanbul (2013); and the Zimmerli Art Museum, New Jersey (2011).
Kaarel Kurismaa’s exhibition is made possible thanks to the support of the Estonian Cultural Endowment and the Ministry of Culture of Estonia.
Both exhibitions are curated by Fanny Hauser.
