Rib

Exhibition Opening
Daniel Laufer
The Architecture of Story
17.04.2026, 19:00

Rib is pleased to announce The Architecture of Story, a solo exhibition by Daniel Laufer (b. 1975, Hanover; lives in Berlin), 18 April – 7 June 2026.

The exhibition is curated by Kunsthalle Lingen and hosted by Rib, marking the first chapter of an institutional collaboration between the two organisations. Laufer's show at Rib runs simultaneously with his larger solo exhibition Time Fragments at Kunsthalle Lingen, which opens on 10 April and runs through 7 June. Together, the two presentations offer complementary perspectives on Laufer's practice across two very different spatial and institutional contexts.

The second stage of this collaboration will follow in 2027, when Rib curates a restaging of The Last Terminal: Reflections on the Coming Apocalypse at Kunsthalle Lingen, translating and extending the multi-year exhibition programme that unfolded at Rib between 2021 and 2025 across three volumes and fourteen chapters into a single group exhibition.

Daniel Laufer works across painting, film, installation, sculpture, and performance, constructing intermedial constellations from historical and contemporary filmic techniques, language, painting, and stage design. Having worked as a scenic painter before studying art, his installations carry a material specificity — props, storyboards, and built environments are not incidental to the moving image but structurally inseparable from it. His films resist the logic of seamless narration; instead, they fracture temporal continuity, exposing the gaps, cuts, and silences through which storytelling reveals its own construction.

Our festival guide with the full program is now online:

www.ribrib.nl

Find us between a dream world and a double-sided painting. We bring you the work of Nie Pastille and Philipp Schwalb in collaboration with JUBG, at 𝑯𝒆𝒕 𝒁𝒖𝒊𝒅 𝑴𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒇𝒆𝒔𝒕: 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒂 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒐𝒔.

Nie Pastille’s () work begins with fragments of random gestures. It feels familiar, awakens memories, triggers moods, but remains open. Colors, shapes, bodies, structures - they open up worlds that cannot be explained, but felt. Like a walk-in dream world that is not always gentle. What holds the work together is affection and care – less a theme, more an inner force. It conveys a feeling of being safe and secure that is not tied to a place, but to closeness and connection.

What roles do pictures and images play in society? Philipp Schwalb’s () recent paintings are coins: two-sided (direct/complex) and activated by (ex)change. The 𝘊𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘭𝘵-𝘉𝘶𝘵𝘭𝘦𝘳-𝘍𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺-𝘗𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 (2025) are a series of thirteen book-sized, double-sided, Delft-blue works. Each painting simultaneously, “coloristically” and “constellationally,” interweaves four narrations, using its own precise language, methods, and arguments to form one Bild. Each combines a storyline about cobalt with a book by Octavia Butler, a moment from the artist’s family history, and the philosophy of painting. The cobalt narrative traces its history as a pigment in Delftware, addressing its socio-economic implications, its status as a raw material, its mining, its role in art history, its use in lithium batteries, and its functions in the human body.

JUBG (.space) is a Cologne based gallery for contemporary art, founded in 2020 by Jens-Uwe Beyer, Albert Oehlen and Alexander Warhus. It is a space for conversation and inspiration that connects art and music, sound. JUBG works with artists, musicians, writers, whether from the underground or acclaimed positions. The gallery program shows international artists and influential musicians combined in unique collaborations.

Meet us in Charlois from 26-29 March!



Photo 1: Nie Pastille, 𝘞𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳, 2025.

Photo 2: Philipp Schwalb, 𝘉𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘗𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘵, 2025.

In the series 𝘌𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘴 (2026), Gabriel Kuri reimagines matchsticks as oversized objects. In collaboration with Esther Schipper gallery, we bring them to Charlois during 𝑯𝒆𝒕 𝒁𝒖𝒊𝒅 𝑴𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒇𝒆𝒔𝒕: 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒂 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒐𝒔.

Gabriel Kuri’s () work is complex yet deeply intuitive, combining found elements that can be understood as allusions to fundamental human activities: expenditure of energy (fire, food, nourishment), the organization of knowledge (mathematics), visual representation of information and play.

Objects such as oversized matches or cigarette butts, as well as lengths of building or insulating materials are recurring motif in Gabriel Kuri's work, connoting a human presence, spent energy or time, and evoking the sometimes brittle beauty of the everyday.

In 𝘌𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘴 (2026), Kuri’s giant matchsticks - both with their red sulphur tip intact and burned - evoke the expenditure of energy but also the need for light and warmth in such make-shift shelters. In the festival, you will find them placed by the artist in multiple locations and dispositions.

Esther Schipper () founded her first gallery in Cologne in 1989. After German reunification, she opened a satellite space in Berlin in the mid-1990s, where it has since developed an influential international program. Since then, the gallery has expanded globally, integrating Johnen Galerie in 2015 and opening spaces in Seoul, Paris, and New York.

Between 26-29 March, you can discover Gabriel Kuri’s works and more around Charlois, during 𝑯𝒆𝒕 𝒁𝒖𝒊𝒅 𝑴𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒇𝒆𝒔𝒕: 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒍𝒂 𝑳𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒐𝒔.

Photo 1: Gabriel Kuri, 𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘗𝘳é𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴, Esther Schipper, Paris 2023. Photo by Andrea Rossetti. Courtesy of the artist and Esther Schipper.