Containers Love Disorder

With: Michèle Graf & Selina Grüter, La Bibliothèque des Ready-Mades, Dominic Michel, Mathis Pfäffli, Matthias Sohr, Kelly Tissot and Paulo Wirz.

The Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen is pleased to present Containers Love Disorder. The group exhibition brings together seven artists and collectives active in Switzerland who explore strategies of arrangement, classification and situatedness.

As the title suggests, the exhibition starts from the idea of the container as a symbol of systems of (dis)order. As standardised transport units, containers have become a basic prerequisite for the global, capitalist circulation of goods and populate land and sea by millions. More figuratively speaking, containers create spaces, moderate specific actions and assign things their place. In this sense, also an art institution can be understood as a container: for art, for discourses, for relationships. The attempt of classification in the field of art always raises questions of authority, context and the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion.

The invited artists reflect on these conditions of art production and access, directly responding to the spatial and contextual circumstances of the Kunst Halle in the form of sculptures or installations. Adopting various focal points and approaches, their works trace the influences of infrastructures on our thoughts and actions, sharpen our awareness of technologised environments or devote themselves to the stories and rituals inscribed in everyday objects. By collecting, recording, recycling and appropriating, these artists confront a world of excess and turn their attention decisively to its remnants, rejects and side scenes.

Containers Love Disorder is based on the premise that every order, every system possesses an inherent entropic force. However, the exhibition conceptualises “disorder” not simply as chaos or dissolution, but as a productive process encompassing the potential for resistance, change and reorganisation. Meanwhile, strategies of classification and ordering themselves can also be understood as an invitation to recognise patterns, shift boundaries and explore the gaps between things. Containers Love Disorder aims to address such considerations artistically and devote an aesthetic commentary to (un)ordered relationships.

The exhibiton Containers Love Disorder is supported by LANDIS & GYR STIFTUNG, Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council, Stiftung Temperatio and Oertli Stiftung. Special thanks to Högg Liftsysteme AG, Lego Oma, Ramptogo, Metzler Holzwerke and Lovay Fine Arts, Geneva.