German artist Michael Sailstorfer is known for his playful installations that explore the industrial materials that surround us by reconfiguring objects to give them new meaning. Some of his well-known works featured a car tyre being gradually shredded by spinning against a wall, trees being launched into the air, cabins that consume themselves with fire, and gold biscuits left buried in a town plaza, triggering a gold rush in the town.
In his latest exhibition in Dubai, We Love Them All, Sailstorfer is presenting a series of mask-like ceramic objects overlooked by a stuffed cat perched on a tall pillar.
The ceramic sculptures are a continuation of the artist’s metal masks from 2015. They are amorphous forms, with rectangular slits, circular openings and protrusions suggesting eyes, mouths and noses. The earthy colours are speckled with glaze drips and marbling, and some have architectural pyramid like projections on the surface. They are reminiscent of primitive African, Oceanic or Mayan masks but they could also represent futuristic humanoids. The openings in these pieces seem to be like portals for viewers to step inside and find their own meaning in the works.
“I was interested in working with ceramic because it is a pure, classical material that goes back to the beginning of art. My masks are inspired by the earliest human portraits created by ancient African, Oceanic and Mayan cultures, but I have combined them with contemporary elements such as the facades of modern brutalist architecture, including a bomb shelter, and parts of machines such as machine guns to give them a futuristic look. Our mind perceives an architectural façade with gaps or openings as a human face, and I am interested in this play between human and architecture, ancient and futuristic in these works,” Sailstorfer says.
The artist has added a surrealistic touch to his show with Solarkatze, a grey taxidermy cat placed on a tall pillar, just below a light on the ceiling. Frozen in time, it speaks about the past, present and future as we move from an organic world to an increasingly synthetic one.
“The solar cat is sunbathing under the neon light, its face turned away from the world. It could be a self-portrait of the artist, deep in meditation and looking for inspiration, far away from the madness of modern life. It could also represent every person in a certain state of mind such as a moment of quiet meditation amidst the spectators represented by the masks on the walls below. It is important to have such a moment of detachment from all the distractions around us to be able to listen to the voice within,” Sailstorfer says.
We Love Them All will run at Carbon 12 gallery, Alserkal Avenue, Al Quoz, until March 4.
