For DC Open (Düsseldorf Cologne Open Galleries), GUSCH presents its second exhibition, a solo presentation by Julian-Jakob Kneer. Thirty individually painted leather skins come together as one walkable floor — first perceived as a single surface, then gradually revealing themselves as separate panels treated with pigment, alcohol, sweat, perfume and grease. Each skin is unique, carrying a debossed edition number as well as its own scratches and scars. Through crossbreeding ready-made opposing narratives, Kneer’s practice riffs on themes of morality and desire. Inexorably returning to the foundational principles of the human psyche and the gamification of the human experience, he digs up and confronts our conceptions of supposed socio-cultural binaries such as right/wrong, beautiful/ugly, sick/healthy. Kneer breaks them down into their constituent parts, and releases them for recasting in a value-free queer space. He refuses immorality and morality, but instead adopts a stance of “non-morality”. With a fraudulent art world filled with artists who demand that you adhere to their personal viewpoints, Kneer is opting for aesthetic and ideological ambiguity. Adam Lehrer