exit right: a multilayered reflection on pathways, choices, and identity

with exit right, artist nina staehli orchestrates an immersive, interdisciplinary installation that interrogates notions of transition, agency, and spatial identity. operating at the confluence of sculpture, painting, film, and performance, staehli constructs a visceral environment where existential inquiries manifest through an interplay of scale, materiality, and symbolism. at the heart of the exhibition are the “big heads”—monumental, sculptural portraits with disproportionately small eyes. these enigmatic figures, simultaneously sentient and inert, exist in a liminal state between self-perception and external observation. suspended in an ambiguous realm of introspection, they evoke the tension between presence and detachment, control and contingency. complementing this sculptural intervention are windowless architectural forms, evoking both sanctuary and confinement. these stark, faceless structures serve as potent metaphors for spatial demarcation—sites of refuge that simultaneously suggest psychological entrapment. through this juxtaposition, staehli amplifies the dialectic of openness versus enclosure, reinforcing the exhibition’s central meditation on navigation, both literal and metaphorical. integral to exit right is a cinematic counterpart of the same name, which extends the exhibition’s conceptual concerns into a moving-image framework. here, the big heads and hermetic architectural forms enter into a dynamic visual discourse, embodying the dissonance of transformation and the complexities of departure. the film’s fluid sequencing evokes a state of perpetual transition, challenging fixed narratives of place and belonging. the exhibition is further punctuated by expressive, chromatically charged paintings, where spectral traces of heads and architectural silhouettes emerge like ephemeral memory imprints. these painterly interventions destabilize conventional representation, suggesting fragmentation and transience as intrinsic conditions of experience. by activating a spatial, cinematic, and painterly syntax, exit right interrogates the nature of choice, constraint, and movement. staehli’s installation confronts the viewer with a fundamental question: where does agency reside when directionality remains uncertain? within this tension, the work operates as a conceptual threshold—an invitation to reimagine the parameters of orientation, exit, and the fluid boundaries of the self.