The exhibition "Liebes Ding" questions the intimate relationship between man and things. Why do we strive for things? How do we deal with things? What do they mean to us? And what are the consequences of our love for things? With the development of new technologies and the rise of the consumer society, the number of things exploded. Each of us today owns on average 10,000 things! Things are everywhere. They serve as tools for us. They function as extensions of our bodies. We attach ourselves closely to things both physically and emotionally. We touch them, they support and flatter us, we appreciate and worship them, love and hate them.

We live in a man-made world. But with this striving for more and more we exploit the earth, need more and more resources and produce mountains and floating islands of waste. What we consume has become a defining aspect of modern life. We are falling into new dependencies and define ourselves primarily through our possessions, which is why Frank Trentmann gave his fascinating history of consumption the title "Herrschaft der Dinge" (2018). Things have become complex, countless and infinitely diversified. In the beginning we made them in order to survive and to make a better life out of our own. In the meantime, things are smart too, they threaten to outstrip us sooner or later with their artificial intelligence. The relationship between man and thing is changing. The participating artists deal with these current and explosive developments from their perspective. In photographs and videos they show the entanglement of people and things, let people have their say as well as the things themselves, which tell their stories. With a more or less critical undertone, they transform objects and add them to assemblages and installations.