induction gallery is pleased to present new skies, an exhibition of new work by multidisciplinary mexico-city based swiss artist severin hallauer. marking hallauer’s first solo exhibition in los angeles, this presentation will situate his latest series, titled LONG HAUL (i’m only crying on...), alongside other recent bodies of work—each piece a small structure built against the weather of being alive. 

hallauer’s expansive practice centers around an insistence and resistance—an oscillation between intimacy, gesture, and remembrance. across sculpture, installation, video, and text, the artist examines themes of inheritance, protection, and belonging. architectures of safety rapidly become structures of threat and enclosure; memories that comfort turn to confinement, bloodlines meant to define and track lead one astray. the artist’s work is made from the residue of inheritance — aspects of ourselves and experiences we are given before we can consent to them. one becomes a vessel for their own vulnerability and tenderness, and through experience, carries that of another’s. 

in LONG HAUL (i’m only crying on...), hallauer captures the transitional space of migration and travel—suspended between anonymity and intimacy at once. each work evokes the interior world of the in-between: confined cabins, glowing night skies, jetlagged thoughts. in this in-between space, the artist investigates the profound sense of transience and liminal limbo—never grounded, never truly at home. 

Carry On (Baggage) continues this sense of displacement and logic of transit; a modified carry-on suitcase, transformed into a sculptural object, reflecting mobility as both condition and restraint. originally designed to contain and protect personal belongings in transit, the suitcase is reconfigured as a vessel of accumulated experience. function shifts from utility to signification, holding not objects but the traces of movement, decision, and rupture. referencing the narrative logic of swiss papercutting traditions, the work translates ornamental storytelling into precise, industrial material interventions. through processes of cutting, structuring, and reassembling, the surface becomes a site of inscription—where personal and cultural histories are embedded into the object itself. the suitcase oscillates between container and image, between exterior protection and interior exposure.

the personal narrative is at the heart of hallauer’s work. in repeat (trilogy), 2026, hallauer explores the intergenerational transmission of trauma, violence, and responsibility. through autobiographical objects and symbolic materials, the artist examines how inherited experiences shape individual and collective memory. the title progression of the works—Repeat, Repeat², and Repeat³—borrows the notation of mathematical exponents, a formal device alluding to statistical realities, to represent the measurability of data on domestic violence its likelihood across generations. 

Father’s Gun examines the persistence of a singular moment and its lasting impact, wherein the single-frame short portrays the artist confronting both himself and the viewer with a gun in hand directed straight ahead. the work connects a visceral childhood incident, where the artist nearly fired a pistol and shot his brother. presented in a single frame format preserves the immediacy of the encounter, transforming the personal memory into a direct confrontation. reflecting on the past and identity, 2009-04-16.jpeg (First Selfie) tackles one’s own personal archive, the painful return to the past, and the rediscovery of origins, questioning how personal experiences and the past are preserved, reconstructed, and transformed through remembrance. 

enveloping these themes together, hallauer’s installation of Bloodlines and Left Overs (Sono stata qui) ask the viewer to reconcile their memory, history, and inheritance. Bloodlines consists of 355 stained glass microscope slides suspended freely in space on aluminum rods. each slide depicts lineage, a story, a profile, and individual from the artist’s family tree, tracing back to 1560. arranged as a suspended constellation, the work transforms genealogical research into a spatial composition in which ancestry becomes both physically and acoustically present. with geographical movement and ancestral origins in mind, these microscope slides evoke the visual language of science and genealogy as an investigation into the biological and historical structures that bind generations together. the red stained glass recalls both blood and the body as a carrier of memory; the suspended field resembling a unified wind chime of autonomous mobiles readily activated. air moves through the installation, the glass slides gently collide, producing a delicate resonant sound and melody. like a wind chime, the work gives voice to an otherwise invisible lineage, allowing ancestry. Left Overs (Sono stata qui) transforms the mundane everyday object and table setting into an investigation of identity. through ceramics, textiles, and found domestic forms, the artist explores how gestures are transmitted across generations. hand-painted ceramic vessels reference the floral motifs of the artist‘s great-grandmother, Elsy, while embroidered linen napkins bearing the phrase sono stata qui (I was here) recall the textile practice of his nonna, Serena. set upon a table inspired by traditional mexican pottery, the installation brings together european family traditions and mexican material culture. rather than reconstructing the past, Sono stata qui considers domestic labor as an archive of memory. the work reflects on how care, belonging, and identity persist through inherited gestures, leaving behind quiet traces that someone was here.

new skies does not offer resolution—it offers instead a series of thresholds — and asks the viewer to stand inside them for a while. what emerges is a refusal to choose between conceptual precision and emotional exposure.