Finally, a good exhibition Stefan Sagmeister & Meuser

Stefan Sagmeister (b. 1962 in Bregenz, AT; works and lives in New York, US) presents his first duo exhibition, Finally, a Good Exhibition, in dialogue with Meuser (b.1947 in Essen, DE; works and lives in Karlsruhe, DE), at Ruttkowski;68 in Paris. This is a continuation of Finally, Something Good, his solo exhibition at Gaîté Lyrique.

Meuser has been pulling his material out of scrapyards since the 1970s. Sagmeister’s came from the attic of the house he grew up in: unsold paintings from his great-great-grandparents’ antique store. Neither artist starts with a blank surface, and neither hides where the material came from. Meuser’s welds stay visible, as does the old painting under Sagmeister’s color fields.

The difference is what each asks of the viewer. Meuser studied with Beuys and then drew a line under all that theory, turning to steel painted signal yellow or railway brown. His forms do not explain themselves. Sagmeister’s paintings work the other way: the geometry carries a number, and the viewer should leave knowing something new about poverty or democracy.

There is some irony here: Beuys believed art could change how a society thinks. His student went to the scrapyard, and the designer ended up closer to the program.

Put together, the two bodies of work make one claim: things written off as useless still have a long life ahead of them. It is the same argument Sagmeister’s concurrent show at Gaîté Lyrique makes about the world.

 

Opening Reception       2026/10/10           6–8 pm

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