Tobias Spichtig’s work oscillates between glamor and decay, fusing shimmering, almost Warholian surface allure with an incisive critique of contemporary life. His paintings, installations, and sculptures transform familiar images and objects into ghostly apparitions — frozen in time, stripped of depth, yet charged with uneasy vitality. Figures, flowers, and landscapes emerge as flat silhouettes, their stillness intensifying the sense of detachment and latent tension. Humor and melancholy co-exist in his practice, revealing the absurdity and fragility embedded in everyday culture.
Spichtig’s work has been presented in prominent institutional contexts, including Everything No One Ever Wanted at Kunsthalle Basel (2024), GOOD OK GREAT FANTASTIC PERFECT GRAND THANK YOU at the Swiss Institute, New York (2021), and I’m afraid I don’t know how to explain all this at Museum Folkwang, Essen (2019). Beyond CFA, he has held solo exhibitions at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; SALTS, Basel; and Centre d’art contemporain – la synagogue de Delme.
Born 1982 in Sempach, Switzerland
Lives and works in Berlin, Germany
Selected solo exhibitions
2025
TAXI ZUR KUNST, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany
Four Portraits, an Abstract and Two Figures, Grisebach, Zurich, Switzerland
2024
A Muse and an Angel on a Graveyard, Eugster Belgrad, Serbia
It’s Beautiful When the Spirits Arrive,TAO Art Space, Taipeh, Taiwan
People, Jan Kaps, Cologne, Germany
Everything No One Ever Wanted, Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland
2023
Dear Friends, O-Town House, Los Angeles, USA
2022
Pause: Tobias Spichtig – Die Matratzen,KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
2021
Nothing, Freehouse, London
GOOD OK GREAT FANTASTIC PERFECT GRAND THANK YOU,Swiss Institute, New York
2020
Subtitles for Footnotes, Gallery Bernhard, Zurich
Pretty Fine, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
HI IS JUST ANOTHER WORD FOR HELLO, KALEIDOSCOPE, Spazio Maiocchi, Milan
2019
Love and die,Centre d’art contemporain – la synagogue de Delme, Delme
Fridge & Mind Again,(curated by Samuel Leuenberger), SALTS, Basel
SPRING, Deborah Schamoni, Munich
I’m afraid I don’t know how to explain all this, Museum Folkwang, Essen
2018
Das Böse im Dunkeln,Freehouse, London
Total Hell, Waldo, Rockport
Long Stories, Jan Kaps, Cologne
Fridge and Mind, Malta Contemporary Art, Valetta
2017
Die Matratzen,Georg Kargl, Vienna
Body and Ghost, Malta Contemporary, Valetta
2016
Like Deadlines in Heaven, Gallery Bernhard, Zurich
Die Matratzen,Jan Kaps, Cologne
2015
Daily Business,(in collaboration With Paolo Thorsen-Nagel), LambdaLambdaLambda, Pristina
Backdrops for Primitives, Michael Thibault Gallery, Los Angeles
2014
Sorry I’m Late / Don’t Worry Time Does Not Exist., Gallery Bernhard, Zurich
2013
This Is What Happened In the Jungle., Eleven Rivington, New York
Cyan, Yellow, and Violette, Georg Gatsas – Tobias Mirror, Kunstrayen, Riehen
2012
the Blue, the Red, the Green, the Cuboid and the Pyramid, Ursula Blickle Foundation, Karlsruhe
2011
the Blue, the Red, the Yellow, the White, the Brown, and the Green, A.C. Kupper_modern, Zurich
Selected group exhibitions
2025
I Sing The Body Electric, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
Basement Art Assembly Biennial (BAAB) Issue 00, Basement Roma, Rome, Italy
New Language and perfect for what it is…, Grieder Contemporary, Zürich, Switzerland
Shifting, Peter Kilchmann, Zürich, Switzerland, Galerie Hussenot, Paris, France
2024
Yours Truly, Nahmad Contemporary, New York, US
Athletics of the figures, Arcane 57, Paris, France
2023
Rituals for a new world, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris, France
2022
Forming Communities, Kindl Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Berlin, Germany
Peeping Tom, Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin, Germany
2021
New Flesh, Forde, Genève
Stitches, Scènes, Corps, Décors | When The Subversive Stitches, Le Commun, Genève
Grand Ménage, Clearing, Paris
Party de Campagne, CAC – La Synagoge de Delme, Delme
Pathologically Social, O-Town House, Los Angeles
Hopeless Romantics, Futura, Prague
Shred, The Skateroom, Brussels
2020
Studio Berlin,Boros Collection, Berghain | Panorama Bar | Säule, Berlin
Overtone, The Avant-Garde Institute, Warsaw
2019
40,000, A Museum of Curiosity,(curated by Brigitte Franzen), Fellbach Small Sculpture Triennial 2019, Fellbach
2018
Five Million Years, Deborah Schamoni, Munich
Ormai, Balice Hertling, Paris
2017
Things in Shape of Things, Galeria Stereo, Warsaw
Okey Dokey,Zum Jülichstübli, Jan Kaps, Cologne
Fade In 2: Ext. Modernist Home – Night, Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, Belgrade
Summer Show, Carl Kostyál, Stockholm
Hunger,(curated by Oriane Durand), Dortmunder Kunstverein, Dortmund
2016
Tbilisi 16, Kitchen Hall Zurich, Tbilisi
Parapet / Real Humans, P4s, Los Angeles
I Pledge Allegiance,(curated by KM Temporaer), On Stellar Rays, New York
2015
Infamous Lives, Oracle, Berlin
The Subjects of the Artists, Michael Thibault Gallery, Los Angeles
A Form Is a Social Gatherer, Plymouth Rock, Zurich
2014
Attention Economy,(curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen), Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna
Elevation 1049,(curated by Olympia Scarry and Neville Wakefield), Gstaad
2013
Celluloid Brushes, Ludlow 38 (Goethe Institute), New York
Sallie Gardner: A Group Exhibition, Michael Thibault Gallery, Los Angeles
2011
Melanchotopia, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam
Selected press
Frieze
19 September 2024
„Tobias Spichtig’s Vampiric Sitters Draw Us In”
By Krzysztof Kosciuczuk
Link
ArtForum
May 2024
“Tobias Spichtig”
By Kito Nedo
Link
Monopol
7 February 2024
„Künstler Tobias Spichtig, Der Geisterbeschwörer“
By Laura Ewert
Link
Baseler Zeitung
6 February 2024
„Die Materialschlacht als eigentlicher Inhalt“
By Simon Baur
Link
Juliet Art Magazine
2 February 2024
„Everything no one ever wanted: in conversation with Tobias Spichtig”
By Enrico Boschi
Link
St. Gallen Tagblatt
18 January 2024
“Tobias Spichtig macht süchtig – Der Basler Totentanz bekommt ein Update“
By Daniele Muscionico
Link
Spike
8 November 2021
“Good Ok Great Fantastic Perfect Grand”
By Jordan Richman
Link
