Michael Sailstorfer

A liberating leitmotif for the sculptor Michael Sailstorfer runs as follows: “Aggressivity towards material and viewer.” This means that the potential for straightness and directness should be realized without compromise and digressive theoretical intensifications. Created out of this perspective are works which have a direct connection to the present and which were earlier linked especially to the fulfillment of longings so as to possess an intimate as well as a global dimension. Thus pragmatic realizations and bold shifts of context also characterize Sailstorfer’s art, which first summons up a promising euphoria only to veer round into tragedy, even though the original idea was extremely practical—but at the same time absurd (/Sternschnuppe, /2002). At the moment, his interest is focused on the “character study” of sculpture. With questions such as “What can be considered to be sculpture?” and “How do you create an object by removing material?” Sailstorfer touches upon aspects of spatial extension which induce him to move beyond the borders of a sculpture that is bound to the human body. He values smell, noise and light as suitable materials which, because of their quality of spreading out in three dimensions, very definitely fulfill the requirements for sculptural status and which, in view of their invasive character, cannot be ignored. That also solves his problem as to how, in the small sculpture consisting of car tires entitled /Zeit ist keine Autobahn/ (2006), an impressive presence can be attained.

— Eveline Bernasconi