Martin Disler Steinzeug und gebrannte Erde

Buchmann Galerie is delighted to announce a solo exhibition of ceramic works by Martin Disler (1949, Seewen – 1996, Geneva). 

Until his early death at the age of 47, Martin Disler was an irrepressible creator of superpersonal visual worlds. Besides extensive production of paintings, graphic artworks and drawings, he made compelling, highly expressive sculptures through a fargoing exploration of the material used in each case.

The pieces shown in the Buchmann Box come from the work group Steinzeug und gebrannte Erde (Stoneware and Terracotta), which comprises primarily three-dimensional heads. The terracotta sculptures are often hollow vessels, some of them thrown on the potter’s wheel, some freely constructed. 

The head characterizing these sculptures is the bearer of diverse expression, merging together with other body parts and the vase-like form. Several heads blend into one sculpture as if connected to each other, and human physiognomies mix with the animal. 

Friedrich Meschede writes in this context: “The forms are all in warm, earthen clay and maintain a basic disposition toward the physiognomic, (....) the model is always a figure, although its expression is rarely human.”

Most of the sculptures have one or more double faces like the Head of Janus, so adopting a plastic form viewers have found fascinating since antiquity. 

Thus, Martin Disler’s central themes become visible in the sculptures: they deal with sexuality, violence and the inevitability of death. This “conditio humaine” pervades his entire oeuvre. But the group of ceramic works possess an additional lightness, a playful joy in creation – whose origin can be found in the specific materiality. Clay offers the possibility of direct expression, which corresponded to Disler’s spirited nature as an artist. The hollow constructed sculptures are vitalized by inner distension, as if further expanding could explode their boundaries to the world. Solid, and yet with the elegance and charm of a sketch, the terracotta sculptures evidence creative will, an existential will. They unfold a life that is constantly recreating itself, adopting new forms.

Buchman Galerie has represented Martin Disler’s estate since 2013.