TOBIAS KASPAR
Unconditional
© Tobias Kaspar
A work of art that is allowed to change through touch, transport, and shifting locations: With Unconditional, artist Tobias Kaspar connects the Museum Abteiberg with the neighboring Stiftisches Humanistisches Gymnasium.
Unconditional is an exhibition by Tobias Kaspar (b. 1984, Basel), an artist living in Latvia and Switzerland, at the Museum Abteiberg, organized in cooperation with the Stiftisches Humanistisches Gymnasium Mönchengladbach (HUMA). The project was developed as part of the Mönchengladbach International Studio Fellowship, for which Tobias Kaspar was a fellow in 2025–26.
The focus is on the work of the same name Unconditional (German: Unconditionally) that Tobias Kaspar created for a transport crate featuring display elements he designed himself: four photographs coated with gray scratch-off paint, which are now being loaned to care institutions—such as schools, nursing homes, and care facilities—to be exhibited there. Touch, transport, various installations, and changing institutional contexts will leave their marks and become part of the work’s history. The first borrower is the HUMA High School, located right next to the Museum Abteiberg. Teachers and students will discuss how to engage with the work during class, and the results of these discussions will be recorded in a logbook provided by the artist.
The starting point for Unconditional is an anecdote about an event from the early 2010s, the veracity of which can no longer be verified. The phenomenon of memory is not reconstructed or verified here, but rather understood as something that changes form through storytelling, observation, touch, and retelling. The defining title Unconditional gives rise to a work whose images, surfaces, and stories remain deliberately fluid. The events taking place within the institutions that are the borrowers remain internal; no public audience is permitted in the HUMA classroom.
At the Museum Abteiberg, Tobias Kaspar is exhibiting a second version of the work to the public. It is on display in the classroom that Hans Hollein designed for the museum’s educational programs.
About the artist
About the City of Mönchengladbach's Studio Fellowship
Since April 1998, the city of Mönchengladbach, with support from the Josef and Hilde Wilberz Foundation, has been awarding a six-month international studio fellowship to visual artists. The city provides recipients with an apartment that includes a studio and pays a living allowance. At the end of their residency, the artists present their work to the public. Past fellows have included Yael Davids, Tal R, Diango Hernández, Britta Thie, Evelyn Taocheng Wang, and Whitney Claflin. Tobias Kaspar’s residency was also funded as part of the Borderland Residencies program by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
