Istituto Svizzero is pleased to present Patience Will Reward Those Who Lie in Wait, an exhibition featuring new works by Marta Riniker-Radich (b. 1982, Bern). Renowned for her small-format pencil drawings, the artist presents new series of drawings dealing with the theme of social and psychological pressure in relation to working conditions. Through a surreal imagery, Marta Riniker-Radich investigates the ways in which vulnerability, insecurities and fears are connected to today's world of work and to an increasingly demanding society.

Patience Will Reward Those Who Lie in Wait is influenced by sociological studies and reports on the impersonal and extremely bureaucratic white-collar workplaces that have rapidly spread since the 1950s. In the exhibition the artist combines textual fragments taken from the book White Collar. The American Middle Classes, written in 1951 by sociologist C. Wright Mills, with highly detailed drawings of human knees - one of the most fragile parts of the whole body. In other drawings, at the same time, he mentions the figure of the worker and female worker perennially available and obsessive with feathers in the shirt pocket, or the phenomenon of the so-called 'ostrich pillow', a sleep aid to escape the stress of office and escape the monotony of the working day. The drawings, some of which are displayed as a sort of 'Gesamtinstallation' in specially produced showcases, always convey the humor and ambiguity of Marta Riniker-Radich. At the same time, the sense of terror they evoke resonates with us on a personal level, as it relates to a daily working life that is well known to us, and also reflects on his existence as an artist in a highly competitive environment.