(…) there are no distinctions of any real importance in the affairs of men, (...) there is only one time and one place and one person and one truth. ( ...) we are all contained in that time and place and person, and (...) the truth contains us all. — Muhammad Ali: Me, we 

Art does what it likes in people's heads. — In line with this dictum and following the philosophical principle of spoudogeloion (from the Greek spoudaîon – serious and geloîon – laughable), Kerim Seiler creates works that achieve completion only through us as observers and social beings. When deploying an array of techniques and materials to create his works, Seiler is not so much looking to optimise the materialisation in a bid to boost his ideas as experimenting, leaving gaps, deconstructing what appears to be clear and letting things happen – trusting implicitly the potency that lies in the unfamiliar, the opposite, a time and a place.
The title spouligenion finds Seiler touching upon the fact that the admission of mistakes, breaches and irritations is part of his oeuvre. While an observer outside the gallery can make out a neon-red I C U through the window, only by looking "into the wings", i. e. standing in the gallery itself, can one discern the complete message I O U. The graphical character of this large red neon work finds a gentle echo in the small, precisely executed drypoint etchings revealing wondrous motifs and words (Ne travaillez jamais). The astonishment is all the more emphatic at the sight of the marble polar bear (Ours d’après Régine Gallard) in the courtyard, and the Birdhouse in the exhibition space representing the model of a towering, habitable sculpture created by Seiler, who had in mind Constant's New Babylon (the sculpture is currently being built in partnership with a property investor and art collector in Johannesburg).
With only a few works, Kerim Seiler manages to create an abstract yet poetic space that cannot be deciphered using only intellectual faculties – it must also be sensed and experienced: "there is only one time and one place and one person and one truth. (...) we are all contained in that time and place and person, and (...) the truth contains us all." —
Muhammad Ali: Me, we 

Kerim Seiler (*1974) lives and works in Berlin and Zurich. He participated in the 4th Moscow Biennale, and his works have been shown at the Kunsthalle Zurich, the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, the Kunsthaus Zurich and the Art Masters St. Moritz. Exciting 'art-in-architecture' projects by Seiler may be viewed on the Novartis Campus in Basel and alongside track 52 of Zurich's main railway station.