Da Ibid un'esposizione dei recenti lavori di Christoph Weber, giocata sui materiali e sulla fragilità.
Press release :
For uncast, Christoph Weber's first solo exhibition with Ibid and in the UK, the Austrian artist presents six works in concrete, sometimes paired with other materials - chipboard, canvas and vinyl. Weber's work refuses the utilitarian associations of the concrete, generally used in an architectural setting, reflecting on its strength and unexpected fragility.
The title of the show comes from Weber's undoing and reconfiguring of the activity of casting. Conventionally when a cast is made care must be taken to fix its shape during the process of drying and curing. But instead Weber makes an intervention between these stages, bending and tearing the drying concrete before it cures to make unlikely forms.
In works such as Beton (gewickelt), in which sheets of a wood-based building material are wrapped in concrete, concrete appears to take on the qualities of other materials, almost like a blanket or cloak, bundling the boards together.
Weber's works embody moments of tension, each piece hovers around a breaking point. In Beton (gerollt), 2013, vinyl tarpaulin is folded over a glob of concrete and attached to the wall. The vinyl has rolled the concrete suggesting a two-person motion. The work also shows the unexpected strength of the vinyl tarpaulin.
Through the contrasting surface qualities Weber renders in his sculptures, each work has a different sense of volume and weight. In works such as Bent Inversion (2012), a delicate plane of concrete curves upward to the wall, flexing as it rises. One face is as smooth as polished marble while the other appears rough hewn. In contrast is Not yet titled (2012), a slab of concrete folding over and collapsing under its own weight. The heavy physicality of the work stands in contrast to the feather
light gesture of Bent Inversion. All the permanence and commercial utilitarianism conveyed by concrete are dispersed through Weber’s careful investigation of its inherent, unrevealed potential.
Christoph Weber was born in Vienna in 1974 and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna and the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig. Recent solo shows include 10, 25, 80, Projected, Barcelona, ES, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, FR and loose concrete, Galerie nächst St. Stephan – Rosmarie Schwarzwälder, Vienna, AT. Recent group shows include Collection, FRAC BAsse Normandie, FR, On things, on minds, Kunstverein Schattendorf, AT, An I For An Eye, Austrian Cultural Forum New York, US and Post/Postminimal, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, CH.
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