Wolfgang laib website
- Wolfgang laib, pollen
- I studied medicine – with idealism, but before I completed my degree, I realized I would still become an artist.
- Wolfgang Laib's work resists labels.
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Wolfgang Laib’s quiet, meditative work makes him one of the most fascinating artists of our time.
Taking the artist’s choice of materials for his sculptures and installations alone — rice, pollen, beeswax, milk – his work stands out as very unusual and in a unique artistic position within contemporary art.
Laib started out studying medicine in 1968. In 1972, amid his medical studies, he began to work on an egg-shaped stone sculpture called Brahmanda. Translated from Sanskrit, the title means “Egg of the Universe”. At this moment, Laib made the decision to finish his medical studies but with the full intention of embarking on a career as an artist. Shortly thereafter, Wolfgang Laib created his first Milkstone. Closely aligned in shape to a square, the Milkstones are slabs of pure white polished marble, the centre of the surface at the top carved out and sanded down to create a most subtle depression. This the artist fills with milk, thus unifying the ephemerality of milk with the solid density of white marble.
In 1977, Laib began to collect pollen from hazelnut, dandelion an
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Wolfgang Laib
Sculpture and Installation
Wolfgang Laib
Sculpture and Installation
Wolfgang Laib’s quiet, meditative work makes him one of the most fascinating artists of our time.
Taking the artist’s choice of materials for his sculptures and installations alone — rice, pollen, beeswax, milk – his work stands out as very unusual and in a unique artistic position within contemporary art.
Laib started out studying medicine in 1968. In 1972, amid his medical studies, he began to work on an egg-shaped stone sculpture called Brahmanda. Translated from Sanskrit, the title means “Egg of the Universe”. At this moment, Laib made the decision to finish his medical studies but with the full intention of embarking on a career as an artist. Shortly thereafter, Wolfgang Laib created his first Milkstone. Closely aligned in shape to a square, the Milkstones are slabs of pure white polished marble, the centre of the surface at the top carved out and sanded down to create a most subtle depression. This the artist fills with milk, thus unifying the ephemerality of milk with the solid density of white marble.
In 1977, Laib b
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‘Growing up, my parents were very interested in art. Artist like Brâncuși or Giotto were demigods for me. A friend of a friend was Hugo Häring, the architect who stored Malevich’s left-behind paintings during World War II until they went to the Stedelijk Museum. We got to see these paintings up close – he kept them rolled up under his bed here in Biberach [The small town in southern Germany was both Häring’s and the Laibs’ hometown.] – and they had a very strong influence on our family. In the 1950s, it was unusual to encounter such world-class art, in this provincial environment of southern Germany no less. It was a real stroke of luck.
‘When I met more artists however, I was disappointed and couldn’t imagine learning anything from them. So, I studied medicine – with idealism, but before I completed my degree, I realized I would still become an artist. Soon after, I made the first of my Milkstones: sculptures made of pure white marble with a small indention on the surface, which is filled with milk for a few hours in an exhibition. The Milkstone is everything that medicine
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