Anup Mathew Thomas: Two new books, two new works plus an old one for good measure

19.06.2026 - 16.08.2026
With Anup Mathew Thomas

Opening: June 18, 7:00 pm / DJ-Set by Edna Martínez, 8:30 pm

Artist Talk: June 28, 4:00 pm / Anup Mathew Thomas with George Jose

With Two new books, two new works plus an old one for good measure, Anup Mathew Thomas presents, for the first time to audiences in Berlin, a concise yet compelling selection of his work. The exhibition at daadgalerie brings together works developed over the last two decades alongside new ones produced during his fellowship at the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program. These include Apparitions (2026), Sunday Service (2026), Scene from a Wake (2016) and its relational piece, Curtain, as well as two recently published books: Native ball (2025), released by Reliable Copy in collaboration with DAAD/BKP, and Dead as News (2026).

Anup Mathew Thomas’ works dwell at the threshold of documentation and fact, and between fiction and fable. They draw their persuasive and imaginative power from tensions between text and image, observation and interpretation, calling into question the status of photographic images and journalistic writing as means of conveying truth or knowledge about the world. By offering textual mediation to his photographs and assuming the role of narrator, the artist purposefully directs the viewer’s attention toward specific themes and considerations, offering subtle cues rather than fixed meanings. What creeps in at the gaps between reporting and storytelling is a space of ambiguity that shifts how we see the familiar and ordinary, reframing the contingencies and uncertainties that shape everyday life — its social norms, customs, traditions, and myths.

Taken as a whole, the exhibition at daadgalerie asks: what remains of an artistic residency after a fellowship has ended? Who is accountable to whom, and for what? What happens to an unapologetically hyperlocal artistic practice—such as that of Anup Mathew Thomas—once it is transplanted into a completely different context? And how such a body of work positions itself within it?

Rather than giving straightforward answers, Anup Mathew Thomas starts with a list.


Curated and produced by Raisa Galofre and Malte Roloff.

Download the exhibition booklet here.

* Following this exhibition, the daadgalerie is moving to a new location. Details to be announced soon.

Image: Anup Mathew Thomas, Apparitions (detail) 2026