«der welt viel tiefe welten»

Since 1998, the Kunstmuseum Appenzell and the Kunsthalle Appenzell have primarily presented temporary exhibitions featuring both international and regional art. At regular intervals, exhibitions have also been curated from the institutions' own collection, focusing on the Appenzell painters Carl August Liner and Carl Walter Liner, on Classical Modernism, and on contemporary art.

As the collection of the Heinrich Gebert Kulturstiftung Appenzell has grown significantly through acquisitions and donations, the outgoing director Roland Scotti, in collaboration with the artists Regula Engeler and Jochen Heilek, who live in Bühler (Appenzell Ausserrhoden), created a cross-universe spanning both institutions, in which two exhibitions coexisted and entered into dialogue: Collecting | Revisited and der welt viel tiefe welten ("Many Deep Worlds of the World").

The homage to Robert Walser's The Robber (Der Räuber), a long-term project by Engeler and Heilek, formed the core of the dual exhibition—a story that resists becoming history, a film existing solely in the imagination, and an artwork that existed only for a few months before disappearing into "many worlds" and reappearing elsewhere. Around this visual and acoustic nucleus, counterpoints, associations, and artefacts emerged, together forming a reflection of the uniquely meandering collection and its exhibition history: a kaleidoscope in which interpretations, hierarchies, and curatorial strategies dissolved in favour of immediate aesthetic experience.

Works from the collection of the Heinrich Gebert Kulturstiftung Appenzell by Selim Abdullah, Peter Aerschmann, Hans Arp, Frank Badur, Jonathan Bragdon, Katharina Büche, Alexander Calder, Eduardo Chillida, Jim Dine, Margret Eicher, Nesa Gschwend, Christian Hörler, Gottfried Honegger, Stefan Inauen, Rolf Iseli, Hans Josephsohn, Spallo Kolb, James Licini, Carl August Liner, Carl Walter Liner, Fausto Melotti, Gertrud von Mentlen, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Wolfgang Nestler, Andrea Ostermeyer, A.R. Penck, Miriam Prantl, Erwin Rehmann, George Rickey, Hanna Roeckle, Klaus Schmitt, Sean Scully, Kerim Seiler, Louis Soutter, Matias Spescha, Theodoros Stamos, Stefan Steiner, Jochen Stenschke, Gerold Tagwerker, Ty Waltinger, Hugo Weber, Markus Weggenmann, and Beat Zoderer were presented.