Wilhelm Mundt

Sculpture and Photography

 

 

Wilhelm Mundt began working on the Trashstones group of sculptures in 1989. The group is the conceptual and formal anchor point of his work, referred to in installations, photographic works, drawings and video works.

 

Taking the production residues from his studio as the starting point, Mundt, in a labour-intensive process using the force of his own physique, compresses the matter into lumpy forms weighing up to a ton. In a series of elaborate steps, these material cores are then encased inside a solid shell of glass fibre, coloured synthetic resin, bronze or aluminium. The Trashstones’ formative interiors, the materials as well as their metaphorical content, remain obscured from view by their biomorphic outer form. Each piece is unique and marked with a three-digit sequential number, beginning with 001, to reference their serial production processes.

 

With their immediately sensual form, combining aesthetics with ethics, irony with seriousness, the sculptures address questions of sustainability. The Trashstones can thus be read as cryptic commentary on pressing ecological issues, but also as a further radical development of an abstract sculpture that sees itself inspired by artists such as Hans Arp or Barbara Hepworth. In the group of works Trashstones, Wilhelm Mundt juxtaposes industrial manufacturing processes and function-dependent form inventions with an autonomous artistic framework of action.

 

In the Trashstone photographs, Mundt shows the forms in their original size. Their voluminous physicality, however, appears on the white surface of the picture like a black hole. All that remains of the sculpture’s original volume is the fine line of the lower edge’s surface on the work’s contoured shadow.

 

Works by Wilhelm Mundt have been exhibited at the Kunstmuseum in Bonn, Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck in Remagen, Fondation Villa Datris in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, and the Museum Kunstpalast and K20 Grabbeplatz, both in Düsseldorf. Mundt’s work can be found in the permanent collections of the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen in Switzerland, the Margulies Collection in Miami, Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg, and in the University of Bayreuth; they are also in corporate art collections of, among others: Munich RE Reinsurance Company, BNP Paribas bank and the energy company Vestas Aarhus.

 

Wilhelm Mundt was born in Grevenbroich, Germany, in 1959 and lives in Rommerskirchen in North Rhine-Westphalia. He holds a professorship for sculpture at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste (HfBK) Dresden.

Wilhelm Mundt, ‘Wilhelm Mundt, photo: Michael Schultze’
Wilhelm Mundt, photo: Michael Schultze

Selected Works

Wilhelm Mundt, ‘Unklumpen’, Installation view, Buchmann Galerie, 2022
Unklumpen, 2022
Installation view
Skulpturenpark Waldfrieden
Wilhelm Mundt, ‘Trashstone 769’, 2022
Trashstone 769, 2022
Production waste in GRP
Wilhelm Mundt, ‘Trashstone 778’, 2023
Trashstone 778, 2023
Production waste in GRP
Wilhelm Mundt, ‘Trashstone 561’, 2013
Trashstone 561, 2013
Production waste in GRP
Wilhelm Mundt, ‘Trashtone 515’, 2011
Trashtone 515, 2011
Production waste in GRP
A sculpture by Wilhelm Mundt called Trashstone 748.
Trashstone 748, 2020
Production waste in GRP
Wilhelm Mundt, ‘Trashstone 766’, 2022
Trashstone 766, 2022
Production waste in GRP
Wilhelm Mundt, ‘Trashstone 531’, 2011-2022
Trashstone 531, 2011-2022
Production waste in GRP and metal cage
Wilhelm Mundt, ‘Trashstone 756’, 2020
Trashstone 756, 2020
Production waste in aluminium
Wilhelm Mundt, ‘Trashstone 544’, 2012
Trashstone 544, 2012
Buchmann Galerie
Production waste in GRP
Wilhelm Mundt, ‘Trashstone 399’, 2008
Trashstone 399, 2008
Production waste in GRP

News

Gallery Exhibitions

Wilhelm Mundt

Born 1959 in Grevenbroich. Lives and works in Rommerskirchen, Cologne and Dresden.

 

2009 - Professorship at University of Fine Arts, Dresden

 

1989 - 91 Teaching assignment at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf

Education
1979 - 86 Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
Grants and Awards
2007 Jack Goldhill Award for Sculpture, Royal Academy of Arts, London
1986 Scholarship Kunstfonds e.V., Bonn

Solo Exhibitions

2023
2022
2021
2017
2016
2015
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2007
2006
2003
2002
2000
1999
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1990
1989
1988
1986

Group Exhibitions

2023
2020
2018
2017
2016
2015
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
1985
Selected Collections

Universität St Gallen 

Kunstmuseum Bonn

Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg

Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Kunstmuseum St. Gallen

Margulies Collection, Miami

Société Générale Collection, Paris

Universität Bayreuth

MunichRe, München

Vestas, Aarhus

Selected Publications
2011

Biomorph!, Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck, Snoeck Verlag
Abstrakt////Skulptur, Georg-Kolbe-Museum, Berlin
Abstract confusion, b-05 Kunst- und Kulturzentrum Montabaur, Kerber Verlag

2010 "Wilhelm Mundt", Text by Raimund Stecker, Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum
Bochynek, Martin, “Alte Klarheit, neue Kartoffeln”, Kölner Stadtanzeiger, 9 Aug 2010
2007 “Wilhelm Mundt - Trashstones”, Essay by Roland Scotti, Vera Gliem
, Stiftung Liner Appenzell – Ziegelhütte, Appenzell/CH
“Buchmann Galerie seit 1975”, B&M Verlag, Basel
2005 “Wilhelm Mundt, Eine Werkauswahl”, monography on the sculptors
  work from 1989 – 2005, Essay by Roland Wäspe (Kunstmuseum St.Gallen) and interview by Katrin Luz, English/German, B&M 
Publishers Basel
2000 “Kabinett der Zeichnung. Eine Ausstellung des Kunstfonds”, 
Kunstfond e.V., Düsseldorf
1998 Winzen, Matthias, (translated by Pauline Cumbers): Wilhelm Mundt, in: “Deep Storage. Collecting, Storing, and Archiving in Art”, Ingrid Schaffner, Matthias Winzen (eds.), Contemporary Art Center, NY (July 5-August 30, 1998), Henry Art Gallery, Seattle (November 5, 1998-January 31, 1999), Munich: Prestel, 1998, pp. 204-208, (exhib.cat.) 
1997 “Plastik”, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Text by Dirk Luckow 
“Deep Storage”, Haus der Kunst München, Text by Matthias Winzen, München
1996 Luckow, Dirk, in: Art + Text, No. 53, 1/96
Taschitzki, Thomas von, “Grob gebuendelt“, Kölner Stadtanzeiger, 21 Oct. 1996
1994 “Lawrence Caroll, Tony Cragg, Wilhelm Mundt, Manuela Allegrini” Gallery, Brescia, Text by Roland Waespe, Brescia
Bochynek, Martin, “Wilhelm Mundt”, in: Artist, 5/94
1993 Mundt, Wilhelm, “Wilhelm Mundt und Martin Schwenk: Skulpturen: Buch zur Ausstellung vom 3. Juli bis 22. August 1993“, Verlag der Kunstvereins für die Rheinlande und Westfalen (1993)
“Am Beispiel Plastik, Konzeption und Form: Georg Baselitz, Franz Bernhard, Heinz Breloh, Mic Enneper, HAWOLI, Wilhelm Mundt, Robert Schad, Tim Scott, Thomas Virnich”, 1993 
Konzeption und Form, Museum Schloss Morsbroich, Leverkusen; Haus am Waldsee, Berlin; Städtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim, Text by Vera Gliem, 1993.