Permanently emitting an SOS signal in Morse code, Olafur Eliasson’s Your lost lighthouse (2020) reverses the function of the lighthouse by becoming the object in distress. Rather than the guiding light to any number of ships in stormy seas, the rainbow-tinged flashes indicate unknown troubles from within. A prism-like casing looks more organic than mechanical, allowing the light to refract from its New Zealand sourced antique lens across the space.

A remake of a renaissance sculpture from the St Louis Art Museum, Oliver Laric’s Reclining Pan (2019) depicts the half-goat half-man god of the woods, known for his mischievousness and carnality. The fragmented vision, comprised of several 3D printed components in different materials, asks questions about the nature of facsimiles and copies, engaging with ideas of authorship and appropriation for a post-internet generation. This generation will also find answers to the growing limitations in proliferating their artworks globally. According to the artist, objects may become interchangeable as long as their concepts are floating worldwide.

The nesting pigeons of Anri Sala’s Voladores (Flyers) (2020) are shown in their adopted home of the zoo in the artist’s native Tirana, where the birds settled after the site was abandoned. The pigeons have purposefully moved into a new form of captivity, their loss of mobility perhaps reflective of our current predicament. Within the current context the notion of a self-governing migration of species gets a very poignant twist, considering the origin of the virus.

Mathew Hale’s One Silver Dollar Paintings series, begun in 2016, is part of a process the artist undertakes in which he photographs both sides of Marilyn Monroe’s place of burial in Westwood, Los Angeles – both the mausoleum building, with her plaque of remembrance, and the nondescript white wall of the car park behind. In the image Hale also includes a small painting on a price tag as a means of identification.

During our period of isolation, the computer has been an important means of communicating with colleagues, friends and family. Cast in silicon by Henrik Olesen, these three keyboards, titled Auflösung I, II & III (Dissolution I, II & II) (2020), convey a tactility that evokes the fragility of the human body, further emphasized by the frayed edges that seem to be in a state of decay.

Furthermore, for some ‘lockdown’ has meant more time with family, which might impinge upon our work, Thea Djordjadze has suggested the opposite with an untitled painting on plaster (2020) created in collaboration with her young daughter. Recalling the exuberance of early twentieth-century modernist experiments in painting, there is a childish, unhinged element to the daubs of color.

Another World is Possible (2020), reproduced from a real protest sign by Sam Durant, becomes especially pertinent amidst the pandemic and protests across the world, questioning and eroding the status quo. Both the text and font are copied precisely from their original source, replicated as a light box not dissimilar to those used for advertising. However, the slogan still evokes our longing for a change and hope for a better future.

Starting with funerary customs in ancient Egypt, Haris Epaminonda’s gilded brass objects and assemblages Untitled #01 a/j and Untitled #02 a/j (both 2020) make reference to an entry to a burial chamber and a reliquary or sarcophagus respectively. Reminding the viewer of the fragility of their own existence, small objects such as a locust and an adjacent portrait refer further to the ancient civilization, offering a literal and metaphorical portal into the afterlife. In that context, she emphasizes the absolute dimension of the crisis, the mortal thread it inevitably poses.

A strange and brightly colored baton leaning in the corner of the room, Thomas Scheibitz’s Kapital VI (2019) is an unlikely assemblage of different materials and textures. In slightly oversized scale it could resemble a piece of street furniture, seemingly redundant, or it could be a ceremonial weapon. The Marxian reference in the title brings to mind the hardships predicted by economists as a consequence of the pandemic, like a thread from the inevitable future.

Encased within a black steel and glass vitrine, Andreas Slominski’s Ich esse kein Papier (2020) is the small scrap of bread left over with its rice paper label, suspended on a glass shelf. Made with limited means and with a product that has become increasingly valuable and cherished during the pandemic, the reserved piece of bread and its title allude to the absurdity of the practice of pasting on these little labels, now preserved as a testament to who left it behind.

A mirror or window in a dull, yellow-glazed ceramic form, Rosemarie Trockel’s Dans la Rue (2019) is a cartoon-esque object that looks straight out of a fairy tale or film set. The title along its sill appears like a cheap slogan—or is it a reference to the French gilets jaunes protests? Seemingly obstinate, the wall-mounted sculpture presents itself to the viewer as an inaccessible window. 
The work was displayed in the installation Group of Articles at the 2019 Venice Biennale, in the perhaps somewhat forebodingly titled exhibition May you live in interesting times. 

As a continuation of Thomas Demand’s Model Studies series, blackcap (2020) depicts a pattern in the studio of the late couturier Azzedine Alaïa. As a photograph of a drawing, the work is closely concerned with line and shade, depicted well over life-size. Demand’s exacting work methods dictate that the pigment print is produced only at a specialist printers in America he got to know whilst living in the US—a global process that has become increasingly difficult in the current situation.

Ceal Floyer’s Untitled (Remainder) (2020) presents a small wedge of plastic, the vestige of a stack of plastic bags, typically found in shops for fresh produce, that have all been torn off and used. The viewer seems to have arrived late: there are no sacks left, perhaps as a result of the panic buying that took place at the start of the pandemic, leaving only a sense of emptiness and vulnerability.

Presented on a mobile phone left on the floor, Beckmann’s Rope (2020) by Omer Fast makes reference to a diptych by Max Beckmann that depicts a number of figures in the same predicament. They are tied to each other top to tail with rope, in their own isolation union, Originally conceived as a performance for a since cancelled exhibition, the work shows a rehearsal and takes on a different life as a video work presented in this format.

Ketuta Alexi-Meshkhishvili’s photographic prints Hujar’s hand on Motherhood, Blue Rose Aldi Tüte and Pink Anthurium Pharynx (all 2020) bring a certain mysticism to the artifacts of everyday life. With each object and print triggering a range of poetic associations, enhanced by the use of transparent layers that lend the whole composition a certain dream-like aesthetic, they evoke an elegiac mood.