Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen

The exhibition «Uncanny Unchained: The Power of Weird» brings hybrid creatures, eerie silhouettes, hairy textures, and distorted proportions to the Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen. It is a gathering of the grotesque, celebrating the strange, the uncanny, the extravagant, and the miraculous.

We have always been drawn to things that exist on the fringes of normality. Monsters, myths, insects, aliens, and folklore captivate our collective subconscious. But who defines what is 'normal' and what is 'weird'? Where do our shared notions of the peculiar come from? In the Kunst Halle, works by 22 local and regional artists explore the bizarre and mystical, inviting you to take a walk through the Uncanny Valley.

The Uncanny Valley lies beyond the categories of the usual, where we encounter the familiar in the unknown (Freud). It is a grey area filled with unexpected creatures and curious materialities that leave us puzzled and uncertain: are they beautiful or unsettling? Ugly or charming? Dangerous or poetic?

However, if we immerse ourselves in the playfulness of these artworks, we quickly realise that it’s not about rigid categorisation. The power of the weird lies in its versatility: it can integrate the new into the familiar and reinvent outdated conventions. It can invite us to think differently about difference. But it can also simply make us smile. In this spirit, let’s embrace the weird and give it free rein, with works by Anna Zimmermann, Barbara Signer, Beni Bischof, Ebony Tylah, Felix Stöckle, Francisco Sierra, Isabelle Krieg, Karin Würmli, Katharina Biser, Linus Lutz, Maria Anwander, Marlies Pekarek, Nicolaj Schmid, Pascale Grau, Ray Hegelbach, Stefan Rohner, Thomas Anton Rauch, Tobias Bärtsch, Vanessà Heer, and Walter Wetter. Performances by Domingo Chaves and Markus Goessi.

Curated by Barbara Zoé Kiolbassa.