Tobias RehbergerHome and Away and Outside

What does a good work of art look like? Without doubt Tobias Rehberger (*1966) is one of the most influential and successful German artists of his generation. His most recent major distinction in particular, the Golden Lion of the 2009 Venice Biennale for the best work of art, underlines this assessment. There, at the invitation of curator Daniel Birnbaum, Tobias Rehberger redesigned and refitted the cafeteria, transforming it into a psychedelic Op Art Gesamtkunstwerk. The book accompanying the exhibition at the Schirn in Frankfurt now presents a larger survey of works compiled by the artist and simulates a sculpture still in the making in the Rotunda, the entrance area of the Kunsthalle. What is special about Tobias Rehberger’s sculptural work is its strikingly unforced approach and effect. The artist also makes use of simple materials common in everyday life in order to counteract the artificial and technoid character that his objects at first appear to suggest on account of their form and colourfulness. Contrary to expectations, he even heightens this appeal when, as with the cafeteria in Venice, he opens his works as objects to normal daily use. The artist’s attitude relates only superficially to the question of how something can become art; more important to him seems to be the oscillation between the functional demands made of an object and the question of what a good work of art should actually look like.

Exhibition:
Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt/Main, 21/2–21/4/2014