Ursula Hodel, Cezary Bodzianowski, Eva Beresin, Cassidy Toner

We are proud to announce a group exhibition by Swiss-born, Zurich-based, Ursula Hodel; Polish-born, Lodz-based, Cezary Bodzianowski; Hungarian-born, Vienna-based, Eva Beresin and American-born, Basel-based, Cassidy Toner.

All of the artists invited to this exhibition blur the lines between reality and unreality. Never fully embracing either, but instead playfully straddling the borders. Most often they coat their work in a humorous dollop of sugar, to help viewers swallow it, before tasting its sorrowful undertones.

This exhibition is centred around the absurdity of existence. How human nature relentlessly seeks an answer to the meaning of life, even as they are met with silence from the universe. How does one go on without embracing the cosmic joke they must be part of?

The writer Lauren Berlant recalls, “Whenever I tell someone I’m writing a book on humorlessness, they always laugh. Because humorlessness is so unbearable... A liberal model of humor and humorlessness would suggest that you should always try to cure humorlessness with humor, because humor is what keeps things warm between people and it makes it possible to move together in the social.”

All of the works on view draw attention to the roles we are inhabiting. Whether through the cultural baggage we have inherited or the social constructs surrounding us.

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Ursula Hodel uses herself as the main subject of her videos and explores in a humorous and satirical manner, notions of desire, consumerism, vanity as well as the female body. Hodel studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Brighton. Her work has been shown at the Centre d'Art Contemporain de Rueil (Malmaison); Palm Beach Institute of Contemporary Art (Florida); Artists Space (New York); Swiss Institute (New York); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York); and The Museum of Modern Art (New York).

Cezary Bodzianowski (b. 1968) hides behind clichés and is a close observer of social life, as well as the art world. Bodzianowski studied painting at Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw and at Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. Upcoming exhibitions include at Centre Pompidou Metz (Paris). His work has been shown at Zachęta National Gallery of Art (Warsaw); Palazzo Rospigliosi (Rome); Moderna Museet (Malmö); Spike Island (Bristol); Center for Contemporary Art (Tel Aviv); Galleria Zero (Milan); Kunsthalle St. Gallen; Centre Pompidou (Paris); 5. Berlin Bienniale and Tate Modern (London). In 2012, he received a stipend from DAAD in Berlin.

Eva Beresin (b. 1955) portrays herself and various members of her immediate family in lighthearted, riotously colorful scenarios, often of the domestic variety. She studied at School of Fine Arts in Budapest. Recent exhibitions include at Galerie Nagel Draxler (Berlin); Kennyschachter.art (Los Angeles); Charim Galerie (Vienna); Harper’s (East Hampton) and House Wittgenstein (Vienna).

Cassidy Toner (b. 1992) questions artistic principles; aesthetic values and academic traditions, as well as existential matters; behavioral patterns anent desire and prejudice. In 2018, Toner graduated from FHNW Institute Kunst. Recent exhibitions include at KunstRaumRiehen; Swiss Institute (New York); Kunsthalle Basel; GALERIE PHILIPPZOLLINGER (Zurich); Saint Luke (Zurich); Kai Matsumiya (New York); Kunsthalle Freiburg and Kunsthaus Baselland. In 2018, Toner was the recipient of the Kunstkredit Award in Basel.