With a combination of shapes fashioned from raw wood and papier-maché standing
on immaculately lacquered, gleaming socles, the sculptures of Wolfgang Flad
(1974 Reutlingen, Germany) are instantly compelling. The shapes comprise
amorphous, illogical lines intended to represent living organisms. The artist
places the finished pieces on crystal-shaped, perfectly varnished plinths.
Even from a distance, the sculptures have a hyper-reality, reminiscent of
oddly shaped human body parts. It is with an uneasy glance that we recognise
ourselves in these peculiar creations to which Flad assigns the unknown names
of stars (Hamal, Regulus or Castor).
Flad’s work is realised against the background of the scientific and artistic
Utopias of twentieth-century Modernism. There are echoes of Arp and Brancusi.
And of sculptures from nineteen-fifties and sixties sci-fi movies or even
sculptures that appeared in cartoons about modern art published in newspapers
and magazines from that era. The works are the execution of the idea of a
modern time in which science and a hidden, secret reality converge.
The work of Wolfgang Flad is represented in various important private
collections and also in public collections including that of the Kunsthaus in
Zurich. This year, his work was featured in the exhibition LIFE? Biomorphic
Forms in Sculpture in Kunsthaus Graz in Austria. Wolfgang Flad is represented
by Galerie Reinhard Hauff in Stuttgart, among others.
Wolfgang Flad studied at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Stuttgart. He
has exhibited in Galerie Reinhard Hauff Stuttgart, Galerie Scheibler Mitte
Berlin, Kunsthaus Graz, Movement & Flexibility, Dollinger Art Project, Tel
Aviv, Max Lang Gallery New York.
