Michael Gumhold feat. The Sculpture Group˚

Michael Gumhold feat. The Sculpture Group˚
Author: Mark Rappolt (Ed.)
Publisher: WEST
Language: English
Pages: -
Size: 17 x 24 cm
Weight: 68 g
Binding: Softcover
ISBN: 9789079917259
Availability: In stock
Price: €12.00
Add Items to Cart
Product Description

Exhibition catalogue
Michael Gumhold feat. The Sculpture Group˚
13th of January until Saturday, 20th of February 2010
WEST, The Hague


Michael Gumhold (1978, Graz, Austria) is a trained sculptor and the sculpture is definitely the main issue in his work. His objects however have been taken off the pedestal and contain more than three dimensions. He mixes well-known elements into a surprising integrated whole. Fragments of song lyrics, mathematical and chemical terms, acoustic engineering instruments and incunabels from art history are presented to the audience. Gumhold clearly refers to his great idols such as Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys, Bruce Nauman and Marcel Breuer and to icons of music like Michael Jackson and Frank Zappa. He also refers continuously to himself by letting self-made objects return in another time and in another space. Because repetitions work. Because repetitions work. The concept of recycling is his manner of generating new meaning of putting the audience to the test.
Gumhold’s Moonwalk Dancefloor (2009) is made in a tradition of Minimal Art and refers to pop music. The object invites itself to be stepped on and moved on it but at the same time the artist questions the usefulness of this particular way of moving. It is certainly not part of human nature that people move in reverse. As a viewer you may nod at first glance but one moment later you will be stunned by the contradiction. Paradoxes are one of Gumhold’s specialties. Even if music is an important component of his work there is not a sound audible. The amplifier, the microphones and the instruments of The Sculpture Group˚ are supernumeraries in constantly changing arrangements. The cassette tapes building the Wall of Sound (2009) do not turn and the egg boxes on the wall amplify the silence rather then the sound. Gumhold also, very obviously, leaves out the human figure in its installations and summons his public to participate. He is with his visual paradoxes at the same time drummer, conductor and producer of his own show.

Gumhold has previously exhibited among other places at Georg Kargl Fine, Vienna, at Westwerk, Hamburg, at Forum Stadtpark, Graz, at Gallery Polvo, Chicago, at the Slought Foundation, Philadelphia and repeatedly at Art Forum Berlin, Art Basel, Armory Show and Arco Madrid.