The house that Jack built

Recently moved from Berlin to Zurich, Helmrinderknecht contemporary design gallery presents a new exhibition project. 

The exhibition “This is the House that Jack built” transforms a vacant villa in the neighbourhood of Zurich Oerlikon into a temporary home for contemporary design and art. Featuring objects from Helmrinderknecht contemporary design and invited guest galleries, such as: Jeanine Hofland contemporary art, Amsterdam; Depot Basel, Basel; Quintessentia Living by Arthur Rooks, Zurich; Barbara Seiler Gallery, Zurich; Galerie Peter Tellini, Zurich.

As the british nursery rhyme and exhibition title “This is the House that Jack built” narrates, the exhibition can be seen as an accumulated story of complicated relative sentences. Starting with an old villa, the show stretches over three floors, through a vast number of rooms, from the basement with its hidden bar up to the attic with its wonderful gabled structure. The participating galleries present artists from their programme in conjunction with the other guest projects. As in the nursery rhyme, the story of the building becomes also the subject of the exhibition. It is the direct and indirect link to the work of art. “The House that Jack built...”, this house; it is not only a house containing exhibited objects, but perfectly illustrates the symbiotic relationship that all houses have with the objects they contain and the lives lived within its walls.

The villa, built in 1908 by Swiss architect Adolf Asper, stayed in the same family for generations. After a recent change in ownership, the building will soon be renovated and restructured. Although, totally cleared by it's former inhabitants, remaining wallpapers, colours and installations testify to the rich history of the building and it's inhabitants. Temporarily transformed into an exhibition space, the building becomes an extraordinary and unusual exhibition location – miles away from a regular gallery space. Different media, such as painting, video, photography and design are gathered under the same roof, and in keeping with the nursery rhyme, they build on and interact with one another; resulting in juxtapositions and surprising revelations of how the different felds of art and design amalgamate in this very personal, private space.

This is the house that Jack built.
This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the rat that ate the malt
That lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the cat that killed the rat
That ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.
This is the dog that worried the cat That killed the rat that ate the malt That lay in the house that Jack built. [...]

This Is The House that Jack Built, british nursery rhyme, 18th century

Until 3 November 2013
This is the House that Jack built
Helmrinderknecht contemporary design gallery
Allenmoosstrasse 112, 8057 Zurich/Switzerland