Wolfgang Laib Crossing the River Cover
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Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, Damian Jurt, Stephan Kunz (eds.)

Wolfgang Laib
Crossing the River

Wolfgang Laib's work is characterised by a profound relationship with nature and a declared belief in simplicity. Until today, the artist concentrates on just a few cyclical groups of work. Ever since his journeys to India as a young medical student in the 1970s, Laib is inspired by the notion of seeing humans as part of a larger whole. Having decided to work exclusively as an artist from then on, Laib followed this way of life in his art. The quite power of his interventions asserts itself in his choice of natural materials such as pollen, wax, milk or rice and their use in a very reduced visual language.

At Bündner Kunstmuseum, Laib realized a large room-sized installation made of thousands of rice mountains. As an important staple food, rice symbolizes vitality and is fundamental for our earthly existence. The process of creating this work of art is revealed in the book and is related to a conversation between Wolfgang Laib and the architect Peter Zumthor. With this book, Wolfgang Laib reveals the spiritual dimension of art and leads us directly to the sources of his poetics.

Wolfgang Laib's work is characterised by a profound relationship with nature and a declared belief in simplicity. Until today, the artist concentrates on just a few cyclical groups of work. Ever since his journeys to India as a young medical student in the 1970s, Laib is inspired by the notion of seeing humans as part of a larger whole. Having decided to work exclusively as an artist from then on, Laib followed this way of life in his art. The quite power of his interventions asserts itself in his choice of natural materials such as pollen, wax, milk or rice and their use in a very reduced visual language.

At Bündner Kunstmuseum, Laib realized a large room-sized installation made of thousands of rice mountains. As an important staple food, rice symbolizes vitality and is fundamental for our earthly existence. The process of creating this work of art is revealed in the book and is related to a conversation between Wolfgang Laib and the architect Peter Zumthor. With this book, Wolfgang Laib reveals the spiritual dimension of art and leads us directly to the sources of his poetics.

Edited by Damian Jurt, Stephan Kunz, Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur

With a contribution by Wolfgang Laib and Peter Zumthor

Design: Integral Lars Müller

24 × 30 cm, 9 ½ × 11 ¾ in

80 pages, 23 illustrations

hardback

2022, 978-3-03778-696-3, German
English
Artist Monograph Exhibition Catalogue
CHF 45.00

Wolfgang Laib

Wolfgang Laib (*1950, Germany) lives and works in a small village in southern Germany and runs studios in New York and southern India. In 1972, while still studying medicine, he spent six months in India and, on his return, created a sculpture in the form of an ellipsoid egg from a dark erratic block, entitled "Brahmanda" (cosmic egg in Sanskrit). He decided to work exclusively as an artist from then on. From 1977 onwards, Wolfgang Laib began to collect pollen in the meadows around his village and from then on, he worked mainly with natural materials such as rice, beeswax, milk, Burmese lacquer and various metals. This was the beginning of many exhibitions worldwide over many decades. He represented Germany at the Venice Biennale (1982) and participated in documenta 7 (1982) and documenta 8 (1987).

CHF 45.00