In David Renggli’s practice, the notions of equilibrium and balance—understood in their physical, visual, but also conceptual senses—are principles that structure both production and reception. The forms are often based on a juxtaposition between referential worlds that contrast and are even incompatible in terms of value, mainly references to canonical expression of modern art and platitudes from the global design of cultural merchandise.

Thus each work grows out of scattered, contradictory elements, while being subject to a principle of visual standardisation. References are expressed in an altered form that is sometimes ambiguous due to being overly affirmative, but it is usually reduced to a subliminal allusion. Through this game, the work becomes a medium that offers two or more entry points, playing upon phenomena of verisimilitude and subterfuge that simultaneously confirm and undermine each other. Through the plausible conjunction of contradictions, a double bind principle is established, in which each work succeeds in setting the parameters of its own autonomy, between self-reference and ironic tautology.

Following the same principle that governs the production of forms, the exhibition is shaped on the basis of a framework of juxtaposition between contradictory works, subject to a principle of visual balance. Renggli mixes clichés of interior design exhibition with institutionalised traditions of painting and sculpture exhibition, connecting these codes in order to vectorise a plausible framework of reception. The exhibitions operate as images of exhibition. Within this “aesthetic chamber” conferring natural authority upon the works and setting the parameters of certain reception reflexes, a controlled measure of accident and nonsense always creeps in.