Oliver Thie (b. 1983) explores the possibilities of drawing. The exhibition offers a comprehensive insight into the spectrum of his “drawing-based research” and, for the first time, brings three central bodies of work into direct spatial dialogue.

For Oliver Thie, drawing is far more than a representational medium — it is an independent tool for understanding. Through long-standing collaborations with scientists, the artist embarks on expeditions into the overlooked and the invisible. With the utmost precision, experimental materials, and poetic perseverance, he contrasts the instrumental imaging techniques of modern science with direct human observation and the trace of the hand. With the title “The Little Things That Run The World,” Oliver Thie draws on the groundbreaking 1987 essay of the same name by evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson, which directed modern ecology’s attention toward the inconspicuous microworld.

In an era of climate change and rapid species extinction, Thies’s exhibition unfolds as a graphic homage to the smallest inhabitants of our biosphere — a fragile microcosm whose disappearance affects the very foundations of our own existence.

The exhibition centers on three fields of research, ranging from microscopic detail to tropical ecosystems and into the deep time of geological archives.
 

Artist Talk: Saturday, November 28, 2 pm
Winter Break: December 23, 2026 – January 2, 2027

Opening hours:
Wed – Fri, 12 – 7 pm
Sat, 12 - 6 pm