Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. (David Foster Wallace, This is water, 2009)

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What happens when two radiant entities attract each other, but their merging would lead to mutual extinction?

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In the cosmos of the exhibition space, the artists Christiane Peschek and Ernst Lima will be facing each other. This encounter, however, does not merely contextualise the confrontation of the work of two artists. It is about relationship. From intimate togetherness to cosmic connections at the end of the Anthropocene. In a semi-mystical narrative, the exhibition "Total Eclipse" tells of interdependence. Embedded in digital techno-mysticism, the artists reduce each other's work to the lowest common denominator in their first collaborative work: the reciprocal condition.

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An interplay of light and shadow, on a material, mystical and technological level allows the gaze to wander from the outside to the inside. In the process of becoming and passing away, an element emerges that connects beyond the mystical symbiosis - the omnipresence of energy. Digital sources of internet-based wisdom merge with the ritually experienced - the exhibition space becomes the cosmos of their echo chambers. Metal objects are set in vibration by minimalist beats, leading to a trance-like experience; the absence of light replaces vision with sensory impressions.

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On the way to "enlightenment", Peschek and Lima play with opposites in the exhibition and thus fathom the duality of life, the interplay of cause and effect: light causes shadow, life causes dying, the self causes its counterpart. In this context, beliefs prove to be delusions. They challenge visitors to understand the exhibition space as a kind of self-awareness trip.

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The question that accompanies this experience is a collective one: "What will we make sacred?" (Carolyn Chen, The Atlantic, 22 March 2022)

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Christiane Peschek

Ernst Lima

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Floor plan