Wolfgang Laib
21 Jan—5 Mar 2011

Wolfgang Laib

21 Jan—5 Mar 2011
Buchmann Galerie
Press release

The Buchmann Galerie is pleased to announce its third gallery exhibition in Berlin with Wolfgang Laib (b. 1950). 

 

The sculptural center of the exhibition is composed of Rice Houses made from granite covered with soot and oil or tinted red. A portfolio of large-format drawings that were exhibited at the Musée de Grenoble is related to them. 

 

We are especially pleased that, for the first time ever, Wolfgang Laib created a large wall drawing for the exhibition. By doing so, he established a connection between the works on paper and the sculptures in space. 

 

Over a period of more than thirty years, Wolfgang Laib has created an oeuvre that largely escapes traditional categories and has an extraordinarily original quality. 

 

Natural materials such as rice, pollen, milk, and beeswax are employed in art that also reinforces a spiritual dimension whose message is open. 

 

The choice of these materials results in a group of works that unfolds slowly but steadily.  Wolfgang Laib never definitively concludes any of his groups of works, as is evident from the presentation of several rice houses from various periods in this exhibition. The individual works and groups of works are juxtaposed with equal value and weight. 

 

The rice houses recall, in their archaic form, reliquaries from the Far East. Wolfgang Laib thus takes up a traditional form but in the context of the exhibition separates it from its common function in favor of a sculptural dimension. The rice houses are embedded in conic piles of rice that vary in size. Piling the rice evokes the idea of an enormous potentiality in which every grain of rice bears within it an almost inexhaustible power to live and multiply. 

 

Looking at Wolfgang Laib’s drawings, one is taken with the clarity of forms and colors. They testify to a desire to achieve the essential, avoiding any ostentatious tendency. Every characteristic is necessary and turns out to be significant. The reduction of 

the formal vocabulary to primary elements and the tension in terms of the synthesis of form and idea condense in his works, which have a highly suggestive power. Beneath their apparent modesty, these works reveal complex occupations and unsuspected profundity. 

 

For many years now, Wolfgang Laib has numbered among the German artists who enjoy an enduring international reputation and estimation. Important works and groups of works by Wolfgang Laib are represented, among other places, in the collections of MoMA in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, the DePont Foundation in Tilburg, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Kunsthaus Zürich, and the Kunstmuseum Bonn. 

  

Please do not hesitate to contact the gallery for additional information about the artist or for illustrations of the works. 

Wolfgang Laib

Born 1950 in Metzingen. Lives and works in Southern Germany.

Education
1968-1974 Studied Medicine University of Tuebingen
Grants and Awards

2015 Praemium Imperiale for Sculpture, The Japan Art Foundation

Solo Exhibitions

2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2018
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
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1976

Group Exhibitions

2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
1999
1998
1997
1996
1995
1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
1989
1988
1987
1986
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1983
1982
1981
1980
Selected Collections

Kunstmuseum Bonn 

Kunstmuseum Stuttgart

Neue Pinakothek, Munich

Sprengel Museum, Hannover

Kolumba Diözesanmuseum, Cologne

Centre Pompidou, Paris 

CAPC, Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux 

Collections de l’Etat Français, France

Musée d’art contempoarin, Nîmes, France

Musée départemental de Rochechouart, Rochechouart 

Museé de Grenoble

Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Turin 

De Pont Foundation, Tilburg, The Netherlands

Kunsthaus, Zürich

LAC Museum of Contemporary Art, Lugano

Kunstmuseum St. Gallen

The Art Institute of Chicago 

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

The Museum of Modern Art, New York

The Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.

San Francisco Museum of Art

Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

The Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki

Toyota Municipal Art Museum, Toyota