Michael Sailstorfer at Carbon 12 / Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Michael Sailstorfer / We Love Them All



20 January  – 4 March 2018



Carbon 12 | Unit 37
Alserkal Avenue
Al Quoz 1, Dubai, UAE

German
artist Michael Sailstorfer’s We Love Them All tackles formalist
concerns through amorphous ceramic masks mottled with glaze drips and
marbling. A continuation of his 2015 metal mask series, the
reductionist stylization nods towards Oceanic and African Art with
slits to recall mouths, surface manipulations to indicate eyes, and
pointed protrusions to suggest noses. The art historical references
are layered atop Sailstorfer’s contemporary material play – the
ceramic portraiture reads Classical Primitivism, but the masks hold
their own as futuristic, humanoid interpretations – architectural
visages equally informed by post-apocalyptic and repurposed
aesthetics. 

We
Love Them All exists in both archaic and futurist paradigms, and this
dialogue can be read across Sailstorfer’s diverse ceramic faces.
Born of individual combination processes, each mask uniquely captures
the complex dichotomy between historical methodologies and
associations to ceremonial exorcisms and protection, and inertia
towards synthetic futures. While engaging ideological uniformity from
each epoch, Sailstorfer’s omission of homogeny in the humble
physicality reinforces a material charm that asserts notions of individualism. 

The
masks embody a status quo marked by a rumination on contemporary
production, future possibilities, history and symbolism. However,
Sailstorfer’s metaphysical proposition culminates high above the
masks in Solarkatze, a grey taxidermy feline perching near the
ceiling and gazing towards the neon light. Its basking in and
absorption of the illuminating warmth via its innate meditative
introspection is as much a guide to attain omniscient enlightenment
as it is a mediation on future use of organic pasts – and We Love
Them All ’s final material intervention –
epitomizing Sailstorfer’s moments of individualized artifice in a
pre-existing, historically-imbued reality.




-Katrina
Kufer, December 2017




Michael
Sailstorfer b. 1979 in Germany. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
Active
since 2001 with an educational background from Akademie der Bildenden
Künste (Munich) and an MA in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths College
(London), Sailstorfer is represented by multiple international
galleries and with over 180 exhibitions, shows in the Americas
and heavily across Europe, with works in private and public
collections including the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Sammlung
Goetz (Munich), and S.M.A.K. (Gent). His works are a playful and
mischievous exploration into the industrial materials that surround
us, how we function in relation to them, and then how he can
eviscerate all perceptions of their physical limitations in largely
installation-based works.