Laib expresses a spiritual message through symbolically loaded materials: pollen, wax, milk, marble and rice. He presents himself as a nature mystic, critiquing with his intuitive images made from natural substances the materialist values of a late capitalist, highly industrialised society.
Five Mountains
The pollen work in particular is a highly obsessive project. Its accumulation is labour intensive, for it takes several months to fill the few jars required every year, the material painstakingly collected by the artist from thousands of dandelion, hazelnut, and pine tree flowers. After each exhibition the used pollen is kept and cleaned for new projects. Because his practice is so fixated and repetitive it seems related to conceptualists like On Kawara, Roman Opalka, and Hanne Darboven. Of course it is not about writing or counting like these artists' practices, but time is a primary focus of the work. Laib's work also calls upon us to ponder the infinitesimal nature of the world around us.
No comments:
Post a Comment