All Systems Fail

The solo exhibition All Systems Fail by the internationally renowned artist Sarah Morris (b. 1967, Sevenoaks, UK, lebt in New York, USA) surveys thirty years of her prolific practice. Since the 1990s, Morris has created an impressive oeuvre featuring paintings, drawings, films, and sculptures. Through her use of both reality and vivid abstraction, Morris creates a new language of place and politics. The exhibition is presented at the iconic villas Haus Lange and Haus Esters by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and at the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum (KWM). The touring retrospective features over one hundred works – on loan from internationally celebrated collections – many shown in Europe for the first time. Haus Lange and Haus Esters, a key site of modernist architecture, along with an installation at the KWM, offers a unique iteration of the exhibition All Systems Fail.

Morris’s paintings create a virtual architecture and language of forms, incorporating a wide array of subjects. In Morris’s films, a parallel practice to thepaintings, the artist explores the psychogeography and the dynamic nature of cities in flux through multi layered and fragmented narratives, reflecting the hierarchies we inhabit. Uniquely playing with the contradiction of our complicity with structures both macro and micro, Morris is considered one of the most intriguing artists of her generation. Produced in New York, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, Abu Dhabi, and other metropolises, her films document and chart the impact of the commercial form on modern life in late capitalism.

Important information for your visit: The exhibition takes place at Haus Lange and Haus Esters, and with a large installation of further films by Sarah Morris at theKWM. Most of the films are presented in two rooms, one in Haus Esters and one in the KWM, one after the other in a loop. They have a duration between 7 and 80 min. - so we recommend to reserve some time to experience them. The film "Points on a Line" (35 min) will be shown in the garage of Haus Lange at the following times: 12, 14 and 16 o'clock.

The retrospective tour is organized by the Deichtorhallen Hamburg in collaboration with the Kunstmuseen Krefeld, the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, and the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart. The exhibition was planned in close collaboration with the artist and her studio.

Education Program

The exhibition will be accompanied by talks about the artworks, conversational guided tours, seminars, and workshops that explore the aesthetic politics of Morris’s paintings and films. The education program aims to examine the structures referenced in Morris’s paintings. The concepts of networks and infrastructures, which are prominent themes in Morris’s works, inspire workshops for children and adults in which maps will be transformed into multicolored networks and patterns. A key event will be the talk of Sarah Morris and Nicolaus Schafhausen (curator of the Venice Biennale’s German Pavilion in 2007 and 2009) on October 15. Another highlight of the program is the annually organized Study Day by the Curatorial Studies program of the Goethe University Frankfurt and the University of Cologne on the subject of Art, Design, and Consumption, that will take place in Krefeld on November 30 and December 1, 2023. The exhibition's accompanying program also includes a lecture by the MuseumsUni, which takes place in cooperation with the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences.

All Systems Fail in Krefeld presents new works for the first time, including a site-specific wall painting (Society is Abstract, Culture is Concrete, 2023) in Haus Esters. The artist has also created a silkscreen edition exclusively for the Kunstmuseen Krefeld: Deviancy is the Essence [Sound Graph], 2023. The edition (42 x 42 cm, edition of 40) can be purchased for €1,250. All Systems Fail is accompanied by a bilingual catalog, published by Hatje Cantz (€ 42 at the museumshop, € 49 from booksellers). Designed by Scott King and Tom Etherington.

Curator of the exhibition at the Kunstmuseen Krefeld: Juliane Duft

The exhibition is funded by the Kunststiftung NRW and Leap Society and supported by Object Carpet.