With EVOLUTIONARY MOTIVE, PERG presented Adrian Kiss’ first solo exhibition with the gallery and opened its programme to a practice centred on textiles and material research. The exhibition brought together recent quilted works and sculptural constructions in which industrial design, bodily memory and material transformation converge.

Born in 1990 in Miercurea-Ciuc and working between Rotterdam and Budapest, Kiss has developed an internationally recognised practice through large-scale textile installations. His work moves between sculpture, installation and spatial design, combining materials including leather, synthetic leather, canvas and metal with forms drawn from fashion, automotive design and the manufactured objects of everyday life.

Rather than treating textiles as passive surfaces, Kiss gives them weight, posture and an almost bodily presence. Quilted panels appear protective yet restrictive; soft materials are stretched across rigid structures, while seams, folds and tension points register the physical forces acting upon them.

A recurring point of departure is the dunyha, the heavy wool bedding Kiss remembers from childhood. Offering warmth while limiting movement, it becomes both shelter and restraint. This ambiguity runs throughout the exhibition: materials protect and press, support and deform, conceal and expose.

The works occupy a threshold between craft and industrial production. Precise stitching and engineered frameworks meet irregular folds, marks and material resistance. Natural and synthetic substances are not presented as opposites, but as elements within the same evolving system—shaped by memory, use, time and the changing body.

EVOLUTIONARY MOTIVE extended PERG’s ongoing dialogue between art, design and industry through a practice in which material functions as both subject and narrator. The exhibition ran from June 30 through August 31, 2023, at PERG, Asperger Str. 12, 71634 Ludwigsburg, Germany.