The woods have names

Since 2010, the artist has turned inconspicuous everyday objects through shifts in their material and size into larger-than-life figures with a suggestive aura ranging between physical presence and disturbingly alien autonomy. Expansive amorphous color accumulations of polyurethane with added color pigments are another of the artist’s creations. They allude to a form of painting that has become physical, so to speak, while also dealing with the question of form and formlessness. 

The focus of his exhibition for AUSGEZEICHNET # 6 lies on another group of works which the artist has been developing since 2010. For his “Abschleifungen” (sandings), Houlihan planes, saws, mills, and sands everyday furniture pieces such as a chair, a cabinet, or even an entire concert grand piano for so long that they finally become ultra-thin, almost linear structures which have lost all their functionality.

The results can no longer be regarded as objects, they rather appear to be vulnerable “thing-beings” whose precarious form of existence already indicates their possible dissolution and final disappearance. Thus, in a sense, they become witnesses to the inherent fragility of our world.

More info: HERE

Picture: Benjamin Houlihan, skinny grand piano, 2015, photo: Hye-Mi Kim