Michael Sailstorfer: Air Electric

Sailstorfer’s fourth solo exhibition with the gallery brings together three series of works that explore one of the artist’s signature themes: energy. He reflects on energy as a source, as storage, as a transmitter, as working material – in short, as fuel for life.

The sculptural series C-Batterie plays with notions of classical sculpture such as eternity, uniqueness and preconceived values. At first glance, the five bronze casts on white pedestals seem to fulfil these ideas: but is this really the case? Referencing Joseph Beuys’ Capri-Batterie (1985), Sailstorfer creates wax models of the original Capri battery, places them in beehives, leaves the bees to work on them for a few months, and then removes the moulds to cast bronzes from them. The results feels as if nature has taken over, destabilising and questioning the so-called balance while capturing the transience and the creative energy of the moment.

Another set of casts made from ordinary lightbulbs, using the same process, are suspended from the ceiling with reference to their original function.

Sailstorfer’s latest series – Air Electric, from which the exhibition takes its title – turns electricity into his painting medium. A power supply unit provides a constant flow of direct current that ‘paints’ silver on to copper mesh; the result is an abstract, electric landscape of pale blue cloud formations against a golden sky. Occasionally, certain
shapes can be made out through the web of clouds, but the interpretation of the work is ultimately left to
the viewer.

The final work in the exhibition is an addition to Sailstorfer’s Tank series (2020 on). Tank 11 (2024, above) consists of an empty Audi fuel tank, deprived of its original function and context; the tank takes on anthropomorphic features, reminiscent of oceanic masks from a bygone era. The sound of breathing fills the last part of the room, reminding us that energy in any given form is always fuel for life.

To 23 May.