New Ghosts

In summer 2019, Lika Nüssli traveled across Switzerland with the initiative NomadLab in an old postbus and staged performances accompanied by music. During this, she produces large drawings and works on cloths by constantly coloring and washing out the colors. Her body is in the midst of it, she interacts with the materials, the color leaves traces on her legs, her hands. For Werkschau, Lika Nüssli conceives a staging of her work New Ghosts adapted to the architecture of Kunsthalle Arbon. Several layers of wet cloths full of color are draped over various objects, cover them, color each other, leave imprints and stains. For the artist, this work is an opportunity to bring together her different ways of working and is also linked to an examination of artistic processes. She says: „Coloring and washing out – for me, the coloring stands for an involvement with history, memory, things that happened, and bleaching is for letting go, for impermanence, dissolution, a fresh start.” At the same time, these „new ghosts“ have a very clear political dimension for her. Their appearance is reminiscent of baroque arrangement of the folds and thus has an inherent idea of covering and hiding. According to Lika Nüssli, they are in that sense also a metaphorical hint at the complex, inscrutable structures of a globalized world that demands active political involvement from us more than ever.

Dr. Gioia Dal Molin

• Photos: Ladina Bischof

• Werkschau Thurgau
• Kunsthalle Arbon