Thomas Geiger, Eric Hattan: Bretter eben/Simply planks

Nicolas Krupp Gallery presents a new exhibition of the German artists Thomas Geiger (*1983, Lörrach, Germany) and of the Swiss artist Eric Hattan (*1955, Wettingen, Switzerland).

“Bretter eben” (Simply planks) is the first direct encounter of works by Eric Hattan and Thomas Geiger within an exhibition. Both share an interest to shift existing situations in (public) space with simplest means, actions or sculptural interventions to sound out existing limits, rules and possibilities. “It has always been the noble responsibility of art to put a stick in the machine of our conventions.”(Samuel Herzog: Im Fleckenkleid der Möglichkeiten, NZZ, 18.3.2014).

This time the sticks have literally become planks, which are leaning against house walls (Thomas Geiger), or are just hanging on the walls (Eric Hattan). What unites all works is the question of balancing forces. This is experienced sculpturally in Hattan’s pieces and, in Geiger’s approach referred to social realities as echoed in the title Arbeite Arbeite Arbeite – Revolte Revolte Revolte (Work Work Work – Revolt Revolt Revolt), 2016.

Thomas Geiger was born in Schopfheim in 1983, and studied at the Kunstakademie in Karlsruhe and the Kunstiakadeemia in Tallinn. He lives in Brussels and Vienna and is co-founder of the Mark Pezinger Verlag a publishing house for artists’ books. Most recently he won the studio grant awarded by the state of Baden-Würtemberg, which allows him to spend six months in Paris.

Eric Hattan‘s artistic career developed parallel to his early engagement for a young scene of artists, with whom he realized many exhibitions and performances in the self-organized Basel project spaceFiliale during the 1980s and 1990s.