1. Brick, Open

All photographs © Lorenz Cugini

2026
For the exhibition Objektile
At Second Nature in Zurich
Curated by Damian Christinger

The exhibition Objektile, curated by Damian Christinger, brings together three positions rooted in an architectural logic. Bricks, reused standardised components, and ceramic vessels become legible as both objects and spatial formations.

Damian Christinger writes: Objectiles do not promise permanence. They offer variation. They suggest that every artifact is a temporary constellation of forces, a brief stabilization within longer material and energetic flows. Clay becomes habitat. Brick becomes sculpture. Offcuts become design. In each case, the work resists closure. It invites us to dwell not in the certainty of fixed form but in the hum of continual becoming.

In an exhibition setting, metamorphosis unfolds as spatial atmosphere. Structures hover between surface and en into membranes, membranes drift into space. Light penetrates, scatters, and is absorbed. What once functioned as surface acquires depth and presence. The artefact does not impose form upon space; it grows into it.
In the architectural-sculptural practice of Nele Dechmann, the brick, that most basic construction unit, is released from its habitual obedience. Bricks lean, stack, tilt, get cut and recombine into configurations that reference informal architectures and provisional constructions. The brick retains its memory as building block, yet it is asked to perform differently. It becomes both structure and fragment, both wall and gesture. Through repetition and displacement, Dechmann reveals how even the most standardized element carries latent variability. Architecture begins not with monumentality but with reconfiguration.

OBJEKTILE 28.03 – 21.05.26
with Rita Zurbrügg, Piccolli and Nele Dechmann

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1. Brick, Open