- Public Art
Baker's Dozen: 13 Artists x 13 Kabinetts
Lily Hughes
3 July 2026 19:00–22:00
4 July 2026 10:00–22:00
5 July 2026 10:00–19:00
13 Kabinetts. 13 Artists. One Baker's Dozen.
Originating in 13th-century England to avoid harsh penalties for selling underweight bread, a Baker’s Dozen (13 instead of 12) is both surplus and caution. Under King Henry III’s Assize of Bread and Ale law, bakers faced fines or flogging for short-weight loaves, so they added a 13th "vantage loaf" to ensure the required weight. One extra to prevent loss, penalty, or miscalculation. Just to be safe. It stands slightly outside the system to which it belongs, but also as a way to adhere to that very system.
Like boundaries themselves, Baker’s Dozen disrupts the comfort of closed systems. Twelve suggests completeness, order, symmetry—a neatly closed cycle. Thirteen, on the other hand, introduces a productive instability: it doesn’t reject the structure, it transcends it, but shows that every system already contains the potential for overflow.
Baker’s Dozen reflects perspectives on boundaries: not as fixed dividing lines, but as permeable zones where meanings glide, multiply, and rearrange themselves. The additional one functions as a conceptual borderland: neither entirely inside nor entirely outside. It disrupts the logic of equality and reveals how norms often only apply approximately. This surplus corresponds to artistic practices that don't aim for heroic transgression but occupy thresholds and work within inherited forms, subtly shifting them.
Surplus becomes a site of negotiation, care, and reinvention.
The exhibition unfolds across 13 Kabinetts in Neukölln, from the edge of Kreuzberg to the border of Tempelhof. Which Kabinett is the "extra" one—and does it even matter?
Originating in 13th-century England to avoid harsh penalties for selling underweight bread, a Baker’s Dozen (13 instead of 12) is both surplus and caution. Under King Henry III’s Assize of Bread and Ale law, bakers faced fines or flogging for short-weight loaves, so they added a 13th "vantage loaf" to ensure the required weight. One extra to prevent loss, penalty, or miscalculation. Just to be safe. It stands slightly outside the system to which it belongs, but also as a way to adhere to that very system.
Like boundaries themselves, Baker’s Dozen disrupts the comfort of closed systems. Twelve suggests completeness, order, symmetry—a neatly closed cycle. Thirteen, on the other hand, introduces a productive instability: it doesn’t reject the structure, it transcends it, but shows that every system already contains the potential for overflow.
Baker’s Dozen reflects perspectives on boundaries: not as fixed dividing lines, but as permeable zones where meanings glide, multiply, and rearrange themselves. The additional one functions as a conceptual borderland: neither entirely inside nor entirely outside. It disrupts the logic of equality and reveals how norms often only apply approximately. This surplus corresponds to artistic practices that don't aim for heroic transgression but occupy thresholds and work within inherited forms, subtly shifting them.
Surplus becomes a site of negotiation, care, and reinvention.
The exhibition unfolds across 13 Kabinetts in Neukölln, from the edge of Kreuzberg to the border of Tempelhof. Which Kabinett is the "extra" one—and does it even matter?
Biography
Lily Hughes
Lily Hughes is based in Margate, UK
Hughes is an artist and writer exploring everyday life including the political, the poorly, the mundane and the strange. The work could be described as boring to the point of comedy, she is interested in showing things as they are – often spilling the beans on herself in the process.
Hughes is an artist and writer exploring everyday life including the political, the poorly, the mundane and the strange. The work could be described as boring to the point of comedy, she is interested in showing things as they are – often spilling the beans on herself in the process.
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