Event
Willi Siber Exhibition of Recent WorksPost an Event »
Caldwell Snyder Gallery
February 13 - March 31, 2015Info
341 Sutter Street San Francisco, CA 94108 Google Map »
Stehen Objekt and Lavendel Objekt.
Caldwell Snyder Gallery is pleased to present the latest body of work by German sculptor Willi Siber. Exclusively representing Siber in the US for 13 years, Caldwell Snyder welcomes their 3rd exhibition in San Francisco, highlighting Siber’s evolution as an artist.
With its arresting textures and unexpected media, Willi Siber’s work surprises at every turn. In his hands, heavy steel may appear as weightless as a balloon, while common materials—wood, nails, cardboard—combine into otherworldly, fantastical objects. Often, at least from afar, the components of Siber’s works are mysterious; only on inspection do we see that he achieves his miraculous results with simple ingredients, performing a kind of alchemy, transforming everyday matter through ingenious acts of repurposing and recombining.
The paintings, whose innovative techniques push them toward sculpture, can read from a distance as landscapes—aerial views of forests, perhaps, or ice-covered parts of the Arctic—or as microscopic life forms. Yet we sense that for Siber, such resemblances to reality are incidental. As art historian Sabine Heilig has written of his work, “He is not interested in the aesthetics of the material itself, but rather in its ability to be transformed.” Along with its formal inventiveness, Siber’s work is remarkable for its use of color. With a palette ranging from muted earth tones to electric hues of pink and green, he seems to match form to color as if by instinct. The bent-and-folded steel pipe sculptures, covered in pristine coats of enamel, possess a luxurious shimmer, beckoning like jewels, while other works, coated in darker, powdery hues, are quiet and subdued—a spectrum recalling the powerful work of minimalist artists as varied as Robert Ryman, John McCracken, and Craig Kauffman.
Born in 1949 and educated at the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, Siber has exhibited widely, with numerous shows throughout Europe, Sydney, Hong Kong, and the U.S. His work is housed in public collections including the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Embassy in Buenos Aires, among many others. He lives and works in Dietenwengen, Germany.