“SOMETHING’S MISSING“ / “SOMETHING’S ALWAYS MISSING” or “HAVE YOU? HAVE YOU NOT?” – St. Gallen artist Alex Hanimann (born 1955) confronts us with problems and questions of this order in his comprehensive exhibition at the Aargauer Kunsthaus.

Although Hanimann, whose work has been shown at a wide range of venues in Switzerland and abroad, is mainly known for his paintings and drawings. Over the past 20 years his art has been significantly enriched by his use of the medium of speech. This is where his show at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, Conceptual Games, takes its point of departure. Offering a representative survey of his work with text and language, the exhibition features art which today constitutes a central aspect of Hanimann’s oeuvre and has yet to be exhibited in such detail.

The artist has arranged his extensive collection of textual pieces into thematic groups for the exhibition, thus affording us a means to enter his mental and imaginary world. His intelligent and playful way with language is related to the conceptual methodology he deploys in his drawings. Just as he uses everyday subjects in his graphic work to bemuse the viewer, his textual creations also break with the ostensible logic of linguistic conventions. For Hanimann, language is always also a visual material, sensually accessible in the form of large murals, light tables, and fragile works on paper.