Björn Wallbaum
13 Sep - 31 Oct 2013
BJÖRN WALLBAUM
Werkstücke
DIMENSIONEN DES MANUELLEN | VOLUMEN 1
13 September - 31 October 2013
ANDREAS GRIMM MUNCHEN is pleased to announce the second solo exhibition of Björn Wallbaum in our gallery. Born in 1978, the artist studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, where he graduated with diploma in 2011. Björn Wallbaum lives and works in Berlin.
The current exhibition showcases a recent body of works which the artist created during the course of this year. Overall five work pieces and several drawings, reflecting on the terms and conditions of Wallbaums own practice and artistic production in general, are on display.
Each of the exhibited works of art individually provides self-reflective references to Wallbaums previous works, techniques, materials and his central ideas on artistic practice. The dominant materials of the exhibits presented here are commercially available aluminium tape and styrofoam – common industrial products which Wallbaum removes from their mundane context by artistically reassessing them. This prominent game between banality and artistic revaluation here characterises a self-critical quality which deliberately unsettles conventional presuppositions, a feature commonly shared by all the present exhibits.
Two of the presented pieces consciously make use of the visual and reminiscent qualities of the aluminium tape. The reflecting surface of the relief, for instance, not only refers to the mirror and wall pieces of Wallbaums former body of work. Considering the usual materials of traditional sculpture, the aluminium both acts as a placeholder for such more conventional materials and is considerately employed as a commentary on the sculptural tradition. The way the material is implemented as well as its quality of diffusely reflecting the light bring about a visual impression in which the object’s surface indefinitely oscillates between the flatness of its plane and optical depth.
This very moment of irritation is equally constitutive for the works which aim at the artificiality of the applied blue styrofoam. Works of art which despite their concreteness of form appear to be rather abstract ideas. A ladder which cannot sustain any weight. A window which opens to neither an outside nor an inside. Forms that have lost the seemingly secure contents within their own dysfunctional structure.
As an artist who is strongly oriented towards conceptual art, Wallbaum engages himself in complex reflections on our assumption about art and reality. However, it is the self-critical nature of his work after all which defies definite answers, perpetually raises questions and never restrains its viewer from their own interpretation.
Werkstücke
DIMENSIONEN DES MANUELLEN | VOLUMEN 1
13 September - 31 October 2013
ANDREAS GRIMM MUNCHEN is pleased to announce the second solo exhibition of Björn Wallbaum in our gallery. Born in 1978, the artist studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, where he graduated with diploma in 2011. Björn Wallbaum lives and works in Berlin.
The current exhibition showcases a recent body of works which the artist created during the course of this year. Overall five work pieces and several drawings, reflecting on the terms and conditions of Wallbaums own practice and artistic production in general, are on display.
Each of the exhibited works of art individually provides self-reflective references to Wallbaums previous works, techniques, materials and his central ideas on artistic practice. The dominant materials of the exhibits presented here are commercially available aluminium tape and styrofoam – common industrial products which Wallbaum removes from their mundane context by artistically reassessing them. This prominent game between banality and artistic revaluation here characterises a self-critical quality which deliberately unsettles conventional presuppositions, a feature commonly shared by all the present exhibits.
Two of the presented pieces consciously make use of the visual and reminiscent qualities of the aluminium tape. The reflecting surface of the relief, for instance, not only refers to the mirror and wall pieces of Wallbaums former body of work. Considering the usual materials of traditional sculpture, the aluminium both acts as a placeholder for such more conventional materials and is considerately employed as a commentary on the sculptural tradition. The way the material is implemented as well as its quality of diffusely reflecting the light bring about a visual impression in which the object’s surface indefinitely oscillates between the flatness of its plane and optical depth.
This very moment of irritation is equally constitutive for the works which aim at the artificiality of the applied blue styrofoam. Works of art which despite their concreteness of form appear to be rather abstract ideas. A ladder which cannot sustain any weight. A window which opens to neither an outside nor an inside. Forms that have lost the seemingly secure contents within their own dysfunctional structure.
As an artist who is strongly oriented towards conceptual art, Wallbaum engages himself in complex reflections on our assumption about art and reality. However, it is the self-critical nature of his work after all which defies definite answers, perpetually raises questions and never restrains its viewer from their own interpretation.