Much that doesn’t serve efficient production or work, or does so only indirectly, happens on the horizontal: we sleep, have sex, lie there sick or even dead. Sabian Baumann picks up precisely this theme in his_her drawings and objects in unfired clay. The ground as a transition between top and bottom becomes the central element in his_her work. In his_her dreamlike studies, Stiftung Erna und Curt Burgauer award-winner Sabian Baumann (b. 1962), examines society, identity, bodies and emotions. In the horizontal paradise everything happens above and below. The zones above and below the ground are occupied by real-surreal figures: here life and death are always discussed simultaneously. The largeformat drawings can be seen in a very classical sense as a ‘finestra aperta’, a window into a particular world. Still, in the style and manner of their execution, they reflect different eras and the disparity of our present day. In returning to the classical idea of a painting she_he also subverts the constant claims for innovation as demanded by capitalism.