Wolfgang Laib (b. Metzingen, Germany, 1950), lives and works between southern Germany, southern India, and New York. After studying medicine at the University of Tübingen, he devoted himself to art practice by creating sculptures and installations that seem to link past and present, the ephemeral and the eternal, using simple but highly symbolic organic materials usually associated with sustenance, such as pollen, milk, beeswax and rice.
His work has been presented at Documenta (1982, 1987) and the Venice Biennale (1997, 1999, 2019), while his first major institutional exhibition was held at the Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris (1986). He has subsequently been featured in numerous solo exhibitions, notably at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington (2002), the Dallas Museum of Art (2002), Haus der Kunst in Munich (2002-03), Fondation Beyeler in Basel (2005-06), Fondazione Merz in Turin (2009), and MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt (2010).
His largest pollen work was installed in the atrium of MoMA New York in 2013. In the same year, the artist's first permanent installation, a beeswax room, opened at the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, and in 2014, he created a 40m-long permanent underground beeswax chamber in Anselm Kiefer's La Ribaute studio in Barjac.
In 2015 he received the Praemium Imperiale in Tokyo.
In Florence, Italy, in 2019, the Museo del 900 presented his work at several historical sites: Convent of San Marco , Magi Chapel in Palazzo Medici Riccardi, Pazzi Chapel in Santa Crace and at the Rucellai Sepulchre in San Pancrazio.
In 2023, the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart dedicated a solo exhibition to his work and presented the documentary "Wolfgang Laib: Here, Now and Far Beyond."
WATCH THE FILM
This presentation will bring together works specially created by the artist for the museum’s very special architecture, in dialogue with that ode to nature and beauty formed by Monet’s Nymphéas. In the works of Wolfgang Laib (born in Germany in 1950), nature invades art. As a result, his materials, which
The Passageway exhibition project is part of a four-year exhibition programme dedicated to themes that have characterised Giuseppe Panza di Biumo’s research and collection, including ‘nature and form’, ‘rhythm and dynamics’, ‘sign and message’, and ‘light and colour’. Passageway concludes the cycle dedicated to ‘nature and form’, following on from
In this exhibition developed in collaboration with Wolfgang Laib, the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart is presenting pieces from the most important work complexes in each of the artist’s creative phases. On view are, for instance, “Rice Houses” and “Ziggurats,” a selection of drawings, as well as a pollen field. The exhibition also
Ever since his journeys to India as a young man the idea inspired him to see humans as part of a largerwhole. He also follows this way of life in his art. Thereby the artist tracks down the universal, the eternal and works with natural materials such as pollen, rice,
Lia Rumma Gallery will be exhibiting at Art Basel from September 20 to 26. You can find us at booth A1 | hall 2.0 and in Unlimited with “Rosa delicata” by Ettore Spalletti – booth U7 | hall 1.0
