Marta Riniker-Radich

About

Known for her small-scale pencil drawings, the artist presents new series of drawings that address the subject of social and psychological pressure in relation to work conditions. Through a surreal imaginary, Marta Riniker-Radich explores how vulnerability, insecurities and fears are connected to today’s working world and high-performance society.

'Patience Will Reward Those Who Lie in Wait' is influenced by sociological studies and narrative accounts of the type of impersonal and highly bureaucratic white-collar work environments that have been spreading rapidly since the 1950s. In the exhibition, she combines text fragments borrowed from the book 'White Collar. The American Middle Classes', written by sociologist C. Wright Mills in 1951, with highly detailed drawings of human knees – one of the most vulnerable body parts of all. In other drawings, meanwhile, she hints at the every-ready and obsessive office worker with pen protectors in their shirt pocket or the phenomenon of the so-called ‘ostrich pillow’, a sleep aid to escape the stress of the open plan office and block out the dullness of the working day. The drawings, some of which are exhibited as a kind of ‘Gesamtinstallation’ in specially produced showcases, always bear Marta Riniker-Radich’s sense of humor and ambiguity. At the same time, the sense of dread that they evoke resonates with us on a personal level, as she addresses an everyday working life that is well known to us, and also reflects on her existence as an artist in a highly competitive environment.
 

Image: Marta Riniker-Radich, ‘Untitled’, 2021. 

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16.09.2021-30.10.2021

Istituto Svizzero

Via Del Vecchio Politecnico 3, Milan