(De)coded

Eight artists – eight positions. What unites them all is that they set their own rules, consciously circumvent convention or turn it on its head. Some – including Celia Längle, who works with Morse codes, or Pepper Lebeck-Jobe, who sends the most bizarre love messages to his wife by email – see this as a game; for others, it is the codes themselves that drive them to constantly come up with new (survival) strategies and deviate from the norm. Because following them would mean their collapse. Marie Lieb was interned in psychiatric wards for years at the end of the 19th century. With torn scraps of cloth and rags that she arranged on the floor, she created her own world, perhaps even a kind of language with which she not only shook up the hospital rules, but also tried to make herself heard.

The group exhibition (de)coded is about codes, conventions and communication. Our entire existence, how we act and communicate, is closely interwoven with social conventions. An unannounced visit, even a surprise phone call, is quickly regarded as intrusive, letters without a form of address as impolite. Every day we balance between invisible codes, always careful not to lose our balance. We weigh up which message to send, how and to whom. We don’t always succeed. Especially for those who try to break out of social norms, communicating becomes a challenge – and an opportunity at the same time.

With works by Cuno Affolter, Olga Bushkova, Pradeep Kumar, Celia Längle, Pepper Lebeck-Jobe, Marie Lieb, Reto Mathis, Andreas Tschappu.