always reach beyond the light unfolds as a constellation of light, language and charged materials. The exhibition follows no linear chronology. It brings together works from different bodies of work into a constellation in which each object responds to another while retaining its own tension. As in much of Jan Kuck’s practice, meaning does not arise from a single gesture, but from the interplay between language, body, surface, history and space.
The eponymous neon work Always reach beyond the light forms the point of departure. The phrase suggests an apparently simple gesture: to reach further, beyond the light, beyond what is visible, intelligible or already determined. At the same time, Kuck undercuts the gravity of this imperative through a lightness that is never entirely innocent. Light appears to offer orientation, only to withdraw it again. It does not lead to certainty, but rather to a state of heightened attention.
From here, the exhibition unfolds in several directions. In the works of the Old Masters New Series, historical visual languages are not invoked in order to affirm them, but to unsettle them anew. Baroque frames, woven textiles, references to Cranach and neon encounter phrases that seem too direct, too contemporary or too humorous to fit comfortably within a historical order. It is precisely from this friction that their energy emerges: the old is not preserved, the new is not celebrated. Instead, both are held in productive tension.
ARACHNE relocates this conflict into the fabric itself. Acid, glass fibre and projection generate an image suspended between textile, luminous object and apparition. SORE POINT, by contrast, turns attention towards the structure of questioning. The work does not ask which answer is correct, but whether the questions we ask reach the heart of the matter at all. In this shift lies a central aspect of Kuck’s practice: language is not explained but exposed; it must assert itself in space.
always reach beyond the light is ultimately an exhibition about crossing thresholds: about the passage from language to object, from illumination to inquiry, from inherited forms to contemporary experience. The works do not seek a singular interpretation. Instead, they generate fields in which aesthetics, humour, irritation and seriousness operate simultaneously.
Jan Kuck (*1978) lives and works in Munich. With a background in law, philosophy and history, he has developed a conceptual practice centred on language, light and public space. Through neon, laser, fibre-optic and site-specific installations, he investigates how meaning is produced through perception, architecture and collective experience.
His work has been presented internationally in exhibitions and public projects, including Kunsthalle München, the Venice Architecture Biennale, Schloss Bellevue in Berlin and the Copenhagen Light Festival. Kuck is represented by Bernheimer Contemporary, Munich.