‘So far so good’ is an expression of cautious optimism. Up to this point, everything is going well, but what comes next remains uncertain. The exhibition situates itself within this tension. It takes as its starting point questions of authorship, visibility and the attribution of value: when does an object become an artwork, what changes when an artist designates it as such, and what happens when it leaves the exhibition space again?

The first part of the exhibition consists of PVC rainwater pipes. These industrially manufactured objects were purchased from a builders’ merchant and printed with short phrases. Through this limited intervention, they are removed from their self-evident context and transformed into carriers of language.

The phrases are familiar but open-ended. So far so good expresses confidence while immediately calling it into question. The words suggest that everything is going well for now, while also anticipating a possible reversal. The same applies to being an artist: an artist may be visible today and overlooked tomorrow — or the other way around.

Accept and reject likewise derive from a familiar context. They appear on websites when users are asked whether they wish to accept or reject cookies. Within the exhibition, the words also refer to the reception of art. A work is seen or ignored, accepted or rejected, purchased or left behind.

During the exhibition, the pipes are presented and offered for sale as artworks. Any unsold pipes will subsequently be returned to the shop. There, they re-enter the regular circulation of goods and may eventually be bought by someone who needs a drainpipe for a gutter, canopy or garden structure. The printed text, however, remains. A plumber or private customer may thus be unexpectedly confronted with a strange phrase on a banal piece of building material.

This return is an essential part of the work. In a gallery, a failure to sell is generally regarded as a failure of another kind. Here, however, it enables the work to circulate further. The pipe leaves the context of art and resumes its original function. Whether it continues to exist as an artwork after that remains unresolved.

The works in the other rooms developed over extended periods in the studio. Found and collected materials are brought together in loose assemblages. A stone picked up during a journey, which has existed for approximately 350 million years, calls for restraint. Rather than altering it substantially, the artist combines it with other elements while preserving its form and weight.

Other works similarly depend on light, provisional connections. Some elements are held together only by elastic bands. Dust accumulates on their surfaces as the rubber gradually ages and loses its tension. Eventually, it will break and the composition will fall apart. That moment need not mark the end of the work; perhaps it is only then that the work becomes complete.

Some of these assemblages remained in the studio for years without ever being shown. They existed there as potential works, changing slowly through dust, time and weathering. In this exhibition, they become visible for the first time, without their form thereby becoming definitive.

So far, the work exists. So far, the construction holds. So far, it is seen.