Cupboard Love

The design and metaphorical potential of the cupboard is investigated; we also cast a glance into its interior, which has innumerable tales to tell. This exhibition takes a closer look at cupboards, examining them from unconventional angles, delving into their outward forms and inner meanings, and exploring their characteristic materials, sounds and smells.

Selected items of furniture illustrate creative challenges, from design classics and new concepts through to room sculpture. At the same time, they are a physical manifestation of lifestyles, revealing the history of our time in terms of mobility, minimalism, ownership or social status.

Works of art, films and literature often use cupboards as a setting for narrative highlights, playing with their symbolic content. The classic storage space for things thus becomes a hiding place for fugitives, intruders and secret lovers, or a gateway to other worlds. We have only to think of Lucy, who was transported to Narnia through a wardrobe!

With works by:

Maarten Baas (NL) / Regina Baierl (DE) / Herbert Bayer (AT/US) / Jörg Boner (CH) / Peter Braun (DE) / Lorenz Cugini (CH) / Mark Dion (US) / Julia Gröning (DE) / Lux Guyer (CH) / Willy Guhl (CH) / Philippe Halsman (US) / Robert & Trix Haussmann (CH) / Jannis Kounellis (GR/IT) / Frank Kunert (DE) / Le Corbusier (CH/FR) / Jean Lurçat (FR) / Enzo Mari (IT) / Noritaka Minami (JP/US) / Valerie Notter de Rabanal & Simon Hehl (CH) / Augustin Rebetez (CH) / Hans Richter (DE/CH) / Michael H. Rohde (DE) / Roman Signer (CH) / Studio Job (NL/BE) / Studiomama (SE/UK) / John Thackwray (ZA/FR) / Kurt Thut (CH) / tnE Architects (AT) / John Vink (BE) / Klaus Vogt (CH) / Wilhelm Perfume (CH) / Erwin Wurm (AT) / Roman Zangger (CH) / Nika Zupanc (SI) / and others