After the moving success of Requiem — Toolip Art Gallery’s cycle-closing homage to Mozart in December 2025 — the Vienna-based gallery begins 2026 with a new group exhibition: Upside Down.
Bringing together a range of international artists, Upside Down explores what happens when the familiar is disrupted — when perception shifts, and the world quite literally turns on its head.
On entering the exhibition, visitors find every artwork concealed beneath fabric, hidden from view. A cinematic soundtrack composed by Russian composer Maxim Vereshagin builds tension throughout the space, presented live internationally for the first time as part of his new project Universalis.
As the coverings are removed, the exhibition reveals its central twist: every artwork, label, and detail is displayed upside down.
Rather than positioning the audience as passive observers, Upside Down invites participation. Under gentle supervision, visitors are asked to put on nitrile gloves and physically rotate the artworks back into their intended position — restoring balance through collective action, one piece at a time. As the final canvas is turned, the soundtrack shifts back into harmony, marking a return to flow.
The exhibition’s curators describe the gesture as intentionally simple — and quietly transformative:
“This simple, almost childlike gesture carries immense truth. Extrapolated to life — relationships, society, environment, politics, our own — we realise something liberating: real power has always been in our hands. Most broken or unnatural things can be corrected with courage, attention, direct action — often literally within arm’s reach.”
They add that the work is ultimately about collective agency, and the possibility of change — even in uncertain times:
“In that collective moment, senses realigned, neurons fired anew, awakening deeper understanding: we are not helpless in an upside-down world. We can act. Together, change feels not only possible, but inevitable.”
Upside Down is an exhibition about perception, participation, and the small gestures that can shift the atmosphere of a room — and perhaps, by extension, the world outside it.
