translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville,
221012: Galerie Ropac Halle: Michael Sailstorfer – Solarcat
Galerie Ropac Halle
Michael Sailstorfer – Solarcat
31.08.12 – 22.12. 12
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By Stephan Maier
They haven’t meowed, purred, or hissed for a long time; and one hardly expects them to suddenly and fearlessly plunge into the depths: these 15 cats that have been banned onto a five-meter high pillar by the young Berlin-born star Michael Sailstorfer. “Solarcat” is the name of the show that could be described as an early retrospective exhibition.
Nearly everything that one has learned to love during the course of the steep upward career of one of the sculptors of the 00s, is shown in Thaddeus Ropac’s gallery hall: the tyre, tediously and senselessly struggling against the wall, the popcorn machine, incessantly producing as if it were out of its mind and, as a side effect, filling the space with the fragrance of sweet corn, the humming reactor or the video “Lohma” (2008), showing the last seconds of a hut prior to its explosion – taken ad absurdum with a loop-like forward- and backward recording.
Sailstorfer’s constellations are actually ensouled human-machines playing with the moment of transformation and placing it into the technical image of an everyday experimental set up. Even the cats, positioned above the happening on the “ground floor”, mark this transformation. In an obviously enlightened refined level of artistic development the topic of transformation is raised towards a poetic high-level of abstraction: as a possibility.
In an allegoric sense, “animals in art” always also relate to the artist. Without digging too far into art history, cats were always considered as the most autonomous creatures in the animal world. And the artist, as a temporary “stylite” who can be called upon at anytime from the heights above - is he a bucking socialite or a house cat, who shows his sharp claws only when in danger or if he can make a catch? But maybe this image shouldn’t be pushed too far…
Galerie Ropac Halle
5020 Salzburg, Vilniusstrasse 13
http://ropac.net
221012
Galerie Ropac Halle
5020 Salzburg, Vilniusstrasse 13
http://ropac.net
Öffnungszeiten: Do, Fr 14-18, Sa 10-14 h
Galerie Ropac Halle
5020 Salzburg, Vilniusstrasse 13
http://ropac.net
Öffnungszeiten: Do, Fr 14-18, Sa 10-14 h