Sarah Morris: All Systems Fail

Beginning October 15, 2023, the solo exhibition All Systems Fail by the internationally renowned American artist Sarah Morris (b. 1967, Sevenoaks, UK, lives in New York) surveys thirty years of her prolific practice. Since the 1990s, Morris has created an impressive oeuvre featuring paintings, drawings, films, and sculptures. Presented at the iconic villas Haus Lange and Haus Esters by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and at the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum (KWM), Morris’s works trace her interest in the languages of infrastructures, networks, architecture, cities, and even the commercial form. The touring retrospective features over one hundred works—on loan from internationally-celebrated collections—many to be shown in Europe for the first time. The Kunstmuseen Krefeld’s Mies van der Rohe villas, a key site of modernist design, offer a unique iteration of the exhibition All Systems Fail.

Director Katia Baudin explains, “It has long been our wish to invite Sarah Morris to show her works in Krefeld, because of her unique approach towards exploring the legacy of modernism, including the iconic architecture of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. It’s a pleasure that we now have the opportunity to show Sarah’s work in collaboration with other internationally renowned art institutions”. 

The retrospective tour is organized by the Deichtorhallen Hamburg in collaboration with the Kunstmuseen Krefeld, the Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, and the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart. The exhibition was planned in close collaboration with the artist and her studio. Sarah Morris created a new wall painting (Society is Abstract, Culture is Concrete, 2023), designed especially for Haus Esters, and an exclusive silkscreen edition (Deviancy is the Essence [Soundgraph], 2023) for the Kunstmuseen Krefeld. Morris’s most recent films will be shown in installations at the KWM.

Morris is known for her diagrammatic paintings, using color and form to delineate architecture. Her paintings create cognitive maps of the contemporary moment. Similarly, her films of New York, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, Abu Dhabi, and other metropolises, document and chart the impact of the commercial form, such as architectures, designs and products, on modern life in late capitalism.

As Sarah Morris states, “Mies van der Rohe created the image of American business.”

Morris’s work, a compendium of reflections on the city, media images, globalization, and power structures, resonates with Mies van der Rohe’s architectural vision for domestic modern life. While influenced by American Pop, Minimalism and Conceptualism, Morris’s graphic forms reference multinational corporations, serial production, transportation networks, technology, among others.

Juliane Duft, the curator of All Systems Fail in Krefeld, explains: “In Krefeld, Sarah Morris’s work is a foil against Mies van der Rohe’s modernist dwellings, casting a new, surprising, and critical light. Morris is among the most significant artists in contemporary art when it comes to questioning the outcome of modernist ideals on life today.”

All Systems Fail is accompanied by a bilingual catalog, published by Hatje Cantz (42 EUR at the museum, 49 EUR from booksellers). Designed by Scott King and Tom Etherington.

The artist has also created a silkscreen edition exclusively for the Kunstmuseen Krefeld: Deviancy is the Essence [Sound Graph], 2023. The fine art print (42 x 42 cm, edition of 40) can be purchased for 1,200 EUR.

A key event will be the talk of Sarah Morris and Nicolaus Schafhausen (Curator of the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2007 and 2009) on the opening day, October 15, 2023, at 3 pm in Haus Esters.

Curator of the exhibition at the Kunstmuseen Krefeld: Juliane Duft

The exhibition is supported by the Kunststiftung NRW and Leap Society.

Director: Katia Baudin

Press and public relations
Fabienne Kylla, Kunstmuseen Krefeld, T +49 (0)2151 97558-131 / fabienne.kylla [​at​] krefeld.de

The Kunstmuseen Krefeld are a cultural institution of the city of Krefeld. Admission is free for children and young people under 18.