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The Show Sacred Space displays a cross-section of the various genres of Willi Siber's recent work, wall objects with organic shapes as well as large floor sculptures that stretch out into space. These recently turned to steel, the sculptural material of the 20th century. Unlike Richard Serra's rusty Corten steel plates, however, Siber disguises his material by covering it with layers of glossy enamel. Willi Siber mentions: “Each materiality has its specific character, its distinctive haptics and its look. Deliberately my approach contradicts the expectations of the beholder in relation to familiar ways of material composition and visual habits. I’m trying to acquire new unexpected forms of expression and appearance from the basic material.”
Siber explains further: “I am a child of the classic modernism of the 20th Century. Even as a teenager I was fascinated by Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian and the development of abstract art. The appearance of pure form, colour and texture is still not complete. I’m concerned with the formal challenge of familiar abstract shape beyond destruction or deconstruction. An affirmative aesthetics is always maintained.”
Willi Siber
"In reference to his earlier work where you could see mainly natural colours or black and white, Siber has introduced colour in a significant way. Recently he also introduced steel and car paint. He mainly uses lucid emulsions and powdery limes for his sculptures, both of which absorb light and underline the structural consistency and organic origin of the wooden surfaces. Willi Siber's materials always display some type of injury: the splintered wood, the pressed wooden fibers, the cut-up cardboard and boxes. Even the nails and foils suggest emotional tension. They embody the energy that arises from the artist's creative act.”*
“Typically Siber is the fact that the viewer is left guessing about the materials employed. Unusual colours such as light blue, purple and red tempt us to believe we are beholding plastic or rubber hoses, as were employed by pop art to ironically comment on mass consumption. However, the candycoloured, highgloss steel works of Willi Siber pursue another path: they combine modern, everyday construction materials with a sculptural language that places formal composition to the fore.” *
*from Willi Siber: Since Tomorrow, exhibition catalouge, 2012. (text by Sabine Heilig)
Conny Dietzschold Gallery
99 Crown Street, East Sydney NSW 2010
hours: Tue-Sat 11-5
