Hermitage

Kunst Raum Riehen presents the first institutional solo exhibition by emerging Swiss artist Marius Steiger (born 1999 in Bern; lives in Bern and London). In his practice, Steiger explores painting and its history through contrasts such as authenticity and artificiality, figuration and abstraction, illusion and simulation, and the relationship between humans and modern technologies. Rather than drawing from nature or real objects, he works with his own digitally generated 3D renderings. From these he creates pictorial works in the tradition of trompe-l’œil: shaped canvases with a digital aesthetic that imitate individual motifs or situations. Their flawless surfaces and fragmentation both seduce and betray their artificiality — pointing to their origin in the virtual world. The exhibition Hermitage reflects on continuity and collective cultural memory — on permanence, the transmission of iconic forms and motifs, and the persistence of seeing and remembering. On view are paintings with symbolic subjects such as architectural structures, vehicles, classical artifacts, and abstract celestial bodies. They shift between image and object, reality and rendering, combining real narratives with fiction. This contradiction becomes especially clear in the attempt to translate the seemingly limitless possibilities of digital space into material form. Steiger also works with installation and immersive spatial experiences. In Hermitage, the paintings follow the architecture of the three floors, functioning as both visual and conceptual framework elements. Individually and in combination, they form a holistic, contemporary still life. In doing so, they reinterpret the vanitas tradition — not through classic symbols of transience, but through a rigid, artificial stillness that recalls digital imagery and blurs the line between reality and virtuality. The motifs act not only as objects but also as reflective surfaces for the medium of painting itself. They demonstrate how painting can preserve and transform the fleeting, carrying it into new contexts — as a resistance to time. Familiar pictorial icons appear as carriers of collective memory and condensed meaning.