Wade Guyton and Beatrix Ruf in Conversation with Matteo Giovanelli

On April 13th, The Langen Foundation (Düsseldorf, GER) opened an extraordinary exhibition celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Swiss Ringier Collection. The show unfolds within Tadao Andō’s iconic minimalist structure, showcasing around 500 works from Michael Ringier’s personal collection, spanning works from the late 1960s to today. As the title suggests — Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Photography, Film, Video, Sound — the exhibition is an investigation into the nature and evolution of the artistic medium. Beyond its repertoire, it reveals the infinite ways artists push and redefine the boundaries of medium through experimentation, layering, and expression.

The exhibition is curated by Beatrix Ruf – who directed Kunsthalle Zürich (2001-2014), the Stedelijk Museum (2014-2019), and oversaw the Ringier Collection for two decades until 2014 – alongside the New York-based artist Wade Guyton, known for his post-conceptual practice spanning printmaking, photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, installation and digital media. In this case, Guyton appears both as an exhibiting artist, with various works on display, and as a curator, through subtle interventions in the space that cross over between the two roles. To delve into the curatorial process and hear more about different perspectives on the act of exhibition-making, we had a conversation with them.

Matteo Giovanelli: When did the two of you first meet?

Wade Guyton: 2005. But our first project together was in 2006 at Kunsthalle Zürich, when Beatrix was director. It was a show with me, Seth Price, Kelly Walker, and Josh Smith.

Beatrix Ruf: Four solo shows disguised as a group show.

WG: Right. We treated them as solo shows, but they bled into each other – a bit like this exhibition.

You’ve worked together for years as artist and curator. This time you’re co-curators. What does curating an exhibition mean to you?

BR: You go first, I’m not even sure.

WG: I was invited to act as a curator, but I don’t have the ability or the bandwidth to understand all of the artworks at once, so for me, it became a research project. I started by going through everything. Beatrix has deep knowledge of the works, how they connect. I come at it more intuitively, spatially. We bounced between those modes – curatorial logic and artistic response. It was about creating an experience rather than stitching together micro-narratives. And since I’m also in the collection, I had to ask: what does it mean for an artist to curate a show they’re part of?

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