The two musicians and artists Denis Stoffner and Vincent Teuscher have been friends for many years. With their band ‘Luxus’, founded in Zurich in 2001, they have performed at countless parties, in art cellars and on stages throughout the city, giving concerts or playing sessions with other musicians.
The band is the starting point for their joint exhibition at the message salon. The creative process in improvisation is also the driving force in the context of art. In Perla-Mode, Denis Stoffner, the drummer, and Vincent Teuscher, the guitarist, bring together the different elements of their respective work in an exhibition spread over three floors.
Vincent Teuscher shows a series of collages on desire and consumerism, as well as objects made of wood and metal. A robot creature made from discarded Harley-Davidson motorcycle parts sits with visitors to the exhibition in the foyer, while a wooden ladder to heaven cuts through the exhibition space. The painter Denis Stoffner shows new works from his studio. Small-format oil paintings depict the grey-blue-white sky above the city of Zurich and people engaged in enigmatic movements in green garden landscapes.
On the first floor of Perla-Mode, in the message salon, exhibition visitors sit opposite each other at a long table, listening to “Blood on the Inside” on headphones, the improv band of the musical Stoffner family, father and sons, with Vincent Teuscher and musician friends.
The two artists have invited Michel Schaltenbrand, a friend from the days when their clique used to skateboard in Zurich’s neighbourhoods. The stage designer installs a scenic-performative stage situation in the basement of Perla-Mode, in which jazz musician Flo Stoffner, Denis’ brother, appears during the opening and closing events in short performances as a solo musician with an electric guitar, enveloped in light and smoke.