SARAH MORRIS
ALL SYSTEMS FAIL

With ALL SYSTEMS FAIL the Deichtorhallen Hamburg are presenting a major exhibition by the artist Sarah Morris, spanning 30 years of her artistic practice. Since the 1990s, Morris has created an extensive oeuvre of paintings, films, site-specific murals, and sculptures that reflect her interest in networks, typologies, globalization, and architecture, as well as the chain of cities in which she embeds her works. Using both reality and vivid, complex abstractions, Morris creates a new language of place and politics. She sees her pictures as dynamic, self-generating and open to interpretation, movement, and change, giving viewers a sense of being part of a larger system.

In her films, which she creates alongside her paintings, Morris explores psychogeography and the dynamic nature of cities in flux through the layered and fragmented narratives they contain. The situations in which the artist places herself and the viewer reflect the hierarchies in which we live. Morris plays with the contradiction of our complicity with structures at the macro and micro levels in a unique way, and is recognized as one of the most fascinating artists of her generation.

Comprising 60 paintings, the artist’s cinematic oeuvre (15 films), film posters, drawings from major museums and private collections in Europe and the United States, and architectural models of her site-specific installations, the exhibition provides a comprehensive overview of her practice, which ranges from her early work from the 1990s to her most recent series, Spider Webs.

Curated by Dirk Luckow, General Director of the Deichtorhallen Hamburg

The exhibition is being organized by the Deichtorhallen Hamburg in collaboration with the Kunstmuseen Krefeld, the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, and the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart.