Curated by Beatrix Ruf

Like certain young artists of the moment, DAS INSTITUT duo Kerstin Brätsch and Adele Röder can’t shake the form, function, and history of abstract painting—who can? With limber, color-soaked virtuosity, they turn its legacy into design-conscious commodity: leisure wear and decor, posters and cakes, performance photographs and, yes, paintings. Brätsch and Röder speak of their collaboration as an “import-export agency” that deals exclusively in their own products. For this exhibition, created for the Kunsthalle Zürich’s temporary home at the Museum Bärengasse, they will fill numerous low-ceilinged, Baroque rooms with twenty-three dizzying installations—including Mylar works from Brätsch and textile prints from Röder—that might be best understood in terms of the aftermath of the allover. In lieu of a catalogue, the artists have produced JRP|Ringier’s famous annual report (past artist collaborators include Richard Prince and John Baldessari), which this year comes with a special surprise for the special lady—DAS INSTITUT–designed press-on nails.

— Quinn Latimer