Tobias Spichtig

The Mattresses II

Die Matratzen II  (The Mattresses II), an exhibition by Swiss artist Tobias Spichtig (born in 1982) in the Georg Kargl BOX consists of a voluminous floor sculpture of bedsheets on mattresses.


The title initially names that which can be perceived by the viewer. On closer inspection one can recognise traces of use on the bedsheets. The observer finds himself in an intimate scene and simultaneously in an abstract exhibition event. The absent body that accompanies the bodily traces in the form of imprints, bodily fluids as well as things like coffee stains, socially associated with a kind of revulsion, comes across as paradoxical to the formal serialisation. 

The used linens are the sheets of acquaintances, displayed here in an alienated way: the familiar becomes foreign, an abstracted sign. Psychoanalytic conceptions about the subconscious, how meaning is released into our perception by a certain contributor, also play a role here. The mattresses also serve as a background for multiple narratives which stage themselves as gestures in theatre, sculpture or painting.

Text: Vanessa Schmidt


Tobias Spichtig (1982, Luzern) lives and works in Berlin and Zürich. 
His work has recently been shown and performed at the Kunstverein Dortmund, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Jan Kaps in Köln (Die Matratzen), Kunsthalle Zürich, Oracle Berlin and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles among others.