Tobias Spichtig
born 1982 in Lucerne, Switzerland.
Tobias Spichtig moves easily between painting, sculpture, installation, and performance — and between Berlin and Zürich. His portraits read as half-icon, half-ghost: friends, designers, musicians, the people he runs into, drawn in sharp dark lines, big black eyes, saturated grounds. Each face holds its pose somewhere between fashion plate and existentialist stand-in. The paintings sit alongside sculptures of clothing dipped in resin, sometimes nickel-plated — empty hoodies, jackets, dresses standing in for the body — and installations of mattress fields and mounded refrigerators. Spichtig calls this attention to everyday objects a material spiritualism.
"Bodies, faces, flowers, or mountains never quite emerge from their planar surfaces, holding their pose in strange, morbid stillness." – Elena Filipovic
His work has been exhibited at Lafayette Anticipations, Paris; the KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin; KINDL – Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin; the Swiss Institute, New York; the Boros Foundation / Berghain, Berlin; Kaleidoscope at Spazio Maiocchi, Milan; the Centre d'art contemporain – la synagogue de Delme; SALTS, Basel; the Museum Folkwang, Essen; the Dortmunder Kunstverein; Malta Contemporary Art, Valletta; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade; the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; the Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna; Ludlow 38 (Goethe-Institut), New York; the Ursula Blickle Foundation, Karlsruhe; and the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam.
Two solo exhibitions were the starting point of his most recent series: Everything No One Ever Wanted at Kunsthalle Basel, curated by Elena Filipovic, and It's Beautiful When the Spirits Arrive at Tao Art, Taipei. In 2026, Jan Kaps presents him at Art Basel Unlimited with a major installation.
Gallery exhibitions
Institutional exhibitions
Press
- Keeping it together (Blau International, No. 12, Benjamin Barlow, April 2025)
- Tobias Spichtig’s Vampiric Sitters Draw Us In (Frieze, Krzysztof Kosciuczuk, September 2024)
- Interview with Tobias Spichtig (Sara van Bussel, NR Magazine, June 2024)
- Certain Kind Of Beauty (Annalisa Fabbrucci, Nasty Magazine, May 2024)
- Der Geisterbeschwörer (Laura Ewert, Monopol, February 7, 2024)
- Black Metal-Gewitter in Ghostland (Dietrich Roeschmann, Artline, February 2024)
- Notes on the Work of Tobias Spichtig (Caroline Busta, New Models, May 2020)
- Email My Heart (Kristian Vistrup Madsen, Mousse, Issue 70 - Winter 2020)
- Ghosting (Interview with Daniel Baumann, Kaleidoscope, Issue 34 - SS 2019)
- Spatial Ghosts and Architectual Geist: Tobias Spichtig interviewed by Daniel Sherer (DUE, October 13, 2017)
- Art Agenda (Ovul O. Durmusoglu, July 2015)
- Flash Art (Patrick Steffen, February 2015)
- Frieze (Quinn Latimer, June 2012)
Vita
Lives and works in Berlin and Zurich Born 1982 in Lucerne, Switzerland
Selected Solo Exhibitions
Upcoming Art Basel Unlimited, Basel 2026 When a Joke Becomes A Prayer, Galerie Hussenot, Paris
2025 Taxi zur Kunst, CFA, Berlin Heavy Mental, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zürich Travel logs, Grisebach Schweiz, Zürich
2024 A Muse and an Angel on a Graveyard, Eugster, Belgrade It's Beautiful When the Spirits Arrive, Tao Art, Taipei People, Jan Kaps, Cologne Everything No One Ever Wanted, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel
2023 Poetry, Meredith Rosen Gallery, New York Dear Friends, O-Town House, Los Angeles
2022 Die Matratzen, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin
2021 Good OK Great Fantastic Perfect Grand Thank You, Swiss Institute, New York Nothing , Freehouse, London
2020 Subtitles for Footnotes, Galerie Bernhard, Zürich Pretty Fine, CFA, Berlin Hi is just another word for hello, Kaleidoscope, Spazio Maiocchi, Milan
2019 Love and die, Centre d'art contemporain - la synagogue de Delme, Delme Fridge & Mind Again, (curated by Samuel Leuenberger), SALTS, Basel SPRING, Deborah Schamoni, Munich I'm afraid I don't know how to explain all this, Museum Folkwang, Essen
2018 Das Böse im Dunkeln, Freehouse, London Total Hell, Waldo, Rockport Long Stories, Jan Kaps, Cologne Fridge and Mind, Malta Contemporary Art, Valetta
2017 Die Matratzen, Georg Kargl, Vienna Body and Ghost, Malta Contemporary, Valetta
2016 Like Deadlines in Heaven, Gallery Bernhard, Zurich Die Matratzen, Jan Kaps, Cologne
2015 Daily Business, (in collaboration With Paolo Thorsen-nagel), LambdaLambdaLambda, Pristina Backdrops for Primitives, Michael Thibault Gallery, Los Angeles
2014 Sorry I'm Late / Don't Worry Time Does Not Exist., Gallery Bernhard, Zurich
2013 This Is What Happened In the Jungle., Eleven Rivington, New York Cyan, Yellow, and Violette, Georg Gatsas - Tobias Mirror, Kunstrayen, Riehen
2012 the Blue, the Red, the Green, the Cuboid and the Pyramid, Ursula Blickle Foundation, Karlsruhe
2011 the Blue, the Red, the Yellow, the White, the Brown, and the Green, Ac Kupper_modern, Zurich
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025 Of Other Places, Museum Galerie Sindelfingen, Sindelfingen Basement Art Assembly Biennial, CURA. Rome, Rome
2024 Yours Truly, Nahmad Contemporary, New York Athletics of the figures, Arcane 57, Paris Shifting, Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich
2023 Rituals for a new world, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris
2022 Forming Communities, KINDL - Centre for Contemporary Art, Berlin Lobe Block, Berlin
2021 New Flesh, Forde, Geneva Stitches, Scènes, Corps, Décors | When The Subversive Stitches, Le Commun, Genève Grand Ménage, Clearing, Paris Party de Campagne, CAC - La Synagoge de Delme, Delme Pathologically Social, O-Town House, Los Angeles
2020 Studio Berlin - cooperation between Boros and Berghain, Berghain, Berlin Poglos / Overtone, Avant-Garde Institute, Warsaw
2019 40,000, A Museum of Curiosity, (curated by Brigitte Franzen), Fellbach Small Sculpture Triennial 2019, Fellbach Starship. The Near Future, Volksbühne, Berlin
2018 Five Million Years, Deborah Schamoni, Munich Ormai, Balice Hertling, Paris
2017 Things in Shape of Things, Galeria Stereo, Warsaw Okey Dokey, Zum Jülichstübli, Jan Kaps, Cologne Fade In 2: Ext. Modernist Home - Night, Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, Belgrade Summer Show, Carl Kostyál, Stockholm Hunger, (curated by Oriane Durand), Dortmunder Kunstverein, Dortmund Lunar Intervals, Swiss Institute, New York
2016 Tbilisi 16, Kitchen Hall Zurich, Tbilisi Parapet / Real Humans, P4s, Los Angeles I Pledge Allegiance, (curated by KM Temporaer), On Stellar Rays, New York
2015 Infamous Lives, Oracle, Berlin The Subjects of the Artists, Michael Thibault Gallery, Los Angeles A Form Is a Social Gatherer, Plymouth Rock, Zurich All the instruments agree: an exhibition or a concert, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles
2014 Attention Economy, (curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen), Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna Elevation 1049*, (curated by Olympia Scarry and Neville Wakefield), Gstaad
2013 Celluloid Brushes, Ludlow 38 (Goethe Institute), New York Sallie Gardner: A Group Exhibition, Michael Thibault Gallery, Los Angeles
2011 Melanchotopia, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam