More than meets the eye Greg Bogin, Wolfgang Laib, Klaus Mosettig, Bettina Pousttchi, Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger, William Tucker
16 Nov 2012—1 Jan 2013

More than meets the eye Greg Bogin, Wolfgang Laib, Klaus Mosettig, Bettina Pousttchi, Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger, William Tucker

16 Nov 2012—1 Jan 2013
Buchmann Galerie
Press release

Visual perception does not explain our world completely. Even our other senses are not able to do so fully. Often the imagination is required in order to become thoroughly conscious of the things and phenomena of our reality and to open up possibilities that are greater than the surface that is empirically visible. More than Meets the Eye features selected works by seven artists that go beyond the apparent by means of ambiguity, process, potentiality, or visual perplexity. 

 

Greg Bogin (USA, b. 1966, works in New York) is showing two paintings from the new series All Smiles. Their clear compositions, perfect surfaces, and brilliant colors recall pictograms, but without making any recognizable reference. Their titles, Seconds Away and Ziggy, lend them another associative level and make us think of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust of 1972. Their shaped canvases—in the case of Seconds Away, with a round cutout as well—place the paintings in a sculptural context. 

 

Wolfgang Laib (b. 1950, works near Ulm and Madurai) is showing a small glass with gathered hazelnut pollen. The vessel that preserves the pollen is just one way to present this work. The other is to spread the pollen into a rectangular field, as Laib will install it at MoMA in New York in January. 

 

Klaus Mosettig (b. 1975, works in Vienna) is presenting Untitled 1950.3/17 and Untitled 1950.3/18, two works with the same motif. Precise observation reveals that they are two original pencils drawings, and hence—at the limit of perception—not identical works. Both drawings have their origin in the work of Jackson Pollock. Pollock’s expressive gestures give way to processual, meditative temporal space in Klaus Mosettig’s work. The likeness achieves its own validity, like the “projector portrait” Pradovit N24, in which the light of a slide projector is cast on a sheet of paper, and Mosettig records with a pencil the scratches and the dust on the lens. 

 

Bettina Pousttchi (b. 1971, works in Berlin) is showing Panorama, a sculpture of Murano glass. Her work represents the visual anchor of the exhibition. Every individual work and the viewers are seen on the silver mirror of the dome, which recalls a convex surveillance mirror. 

 

The fruit bowl by Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger (b. 1967 and b. 1964 work in Langenbruck, Switzerland) is a work that will change over the course of the exhibition. The delicate pink crystals of artificial fertilizer will increasingly cover the fruit bowl, without its form or the end of the process being predictable at the outset. 

 

William Tucker (b. 1935, works near New York) is showing two sculptures of urgent presence, Siren and Cave, that stand in the room like boulders or landscapes. With their earthy physicality, these works are precise in their surface detail afigure, emotionality and rationality.

Wolfgang Laib

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

Klaus Mosettig

Born in 1975, Graz, Austria.
Lives and works in Vienna, Austria.

William Tucker

Born 1935 in Cairo, Egypt

Lives and works in Massachusetts, USA