We are delighted to welcome you to the group exhibition Liminal Moments 2. The title is taken from a section of the book Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life by the English anthropologist Gillian Tett. In the book, she introduces a concept called liminality, which was developed by anthropologist Victor Turner fifty years ago. In this theory, he states that most cultures use rituals and symbols to mark transition points or phases, whether these are those in a calendar, the start of a new life cycle or a major social event. These special moments are called liminal after the Latin word limens, passage/door. We are currently in a phase of liminality. The world is changing and forcing us to adapt and change certain things. Climate change, global politics, mental health, media, AI, new approaches to interpersonal relationships, new perceptions of our own bodies, our understanding of art – everything is changing and needs to be reinvented. In their work, artists react to the reality of life around them. Each artistic work has a symbolic content that viewers can place in a historical context and discover for themselves.

The exhibition begins with the large blue canvas Love 17 by Anne-Lise Coste (*1973 Marignane, near Marseille FR). In this series of the same name from 2021, Coste expands the possibilities of painting. Her gestural movement is traced in the blue sweeps of the airbrush paint and the red fold cut into the canvas creates an astonishing color accent. Love 17 is accompanied by the work scoop by Bob Gramsma (*1963 Uster, near Zurich). He has made a name for himself with excavations and makes the invisible visible in his works. For scoop, Gramsma followed a double excavation strategy, which can now be seen in the white polymer plaster frame on the one hand and in the chrome-plated surface on the other. Gramsma has a great imaginative capacity to anticipate the visible in the invisible. scoop visualizes a double negative form and includes the memory image of an existing cave with a traverse in the French Alps near Grenoble.

In the next room, a large, colorful wall installation developed especially for Liminal Moments 2 welcomes the audience with two large-format paintings by Mirjam Blanka Inauen (*1982). Six areas of color on paper back the framed works on paper. As always, the balanced combination of colors in Inauen's work is captivating: with different applications of paint and the combination of the individual color elements, she creates atmospheric landscapes. In Inauen's work, the color always determines the form. The size of the sheets allows visitors to immerse themselves in the color.

Most of the other works in this room are in black and white. There is a large-format chain painting by Anne-Lise Coste that has a performative quality. Three photographs by Rebecca Horn depicting one of her famous performances with a pencil mask from 1977 are on display. Ulrike Rosenbach doubles up next to Elvis Presley in the manner of Andy Warhol. Chiharu Shiota presents two cubes on pedestals, into which a silver ball and colored light bulbs are woven with black thread. The exhibition concludes with a legendary video by Anne-Lise Coste from 1997, which shows her racing against the streetcar in front of the gallery.

In the front room Clare Goodwin (*1973 Birmingham UK) installed INCLUDE/CONCLUDE. The work was first shown at multipleart in Zurich, afterwards at Aargauer Kunsthaus and then in the 4th Industrial Biennial Istra Croatia in 2023. The work comprises of over 300 individual hand-cut and glazed ceramic ‘whispers’ – baked slices of painterly forms – into a single wall work. In this work Goodwin refers to compositions of classical modern art, including specifically the work by Pablo Picasso – Guernica 1937. Clean of form, these individual ceramic pieces in monochromatic and subdued tones, collectively create a pictorial vista, allowing narrative and poetic possibilities to arrive through the process of abstraction and fragmentation. Essentially it operates much like a painted image, if one that materializes over a fractured ceramic surface. This piece evokes contemporary relevants with its social and political narrative. The large ceramic installation is complemented by three abstract paintings.

The cabinet contains landscape paintings by Koka Ramishvili (*1956 Tbilisi, Georgia) in two different forms. At first glance, three depictions on canvas follow the traditional Renaissance idea that the picture depicts a view from a window. Ramishvili, however, breaks this impression of perspective depth by surrounding the landscape depictions on three sides with a white border. In this way, Ramishvili makes it clear that the picture only pretends to have depth but always has a surface. In two color-intensive works from the Lost Landscapes series, the landscape has been condensed from the second dimension into the third dimension.

In the office space hang four drawings by Jamie Isenstein (*1975 Portland, OR USA), in which she subtly evokes political associations. The drawing of hands with drumsticks is paired with a pot. With the depiction of the homemade percussion instrument, Isenstein alludes to the protests that are visibly dividing her country. A high-hanging, black motion detector is a reminder of the constant surveillance, and the fire basket is another allegorical portrait of the USA.