Wolfgang Laib

Pollen from Hazelnut, 2013

Milkstone

I saw a photograph in a lecture and was attracted by it immediately. In the photo, there is an artist who is smashing the yellow powder on a gallery floor. At that moment, I was impressed by his attitude towards art, it is so careful and sincere.

Recently, I deeply felt that I need to have the purest heart for art, my artworks do not need to pursue any gorgeous, beautiful and shocking effect. Whether it's my emotions or fantasies, I think what is more important is to express what I really want to say, or present my own world will be good enough. The more you think, the more I feel that art is not necessarily so complicated. Think about the art of the past is just a form of recording everyone's life at that time.

I am also surprised by how can I get such feelings from these minimal works I saw. Perhaps it is because of the simplicity of the work itself, thus highlighting the artist's pure heart.

Wolfgang Laib is a conceptual artist who works with natural materials. He is influenced by Eastern philosophy, especially the philosophy of the ancient Taoist and Laozi. In his works, he presented the relationship between the past and the present, the ephemeral and eternity. He combines temporal organic materials (pollen, milk, wood and rice) with long-lasting (granite, marble and brass) to make contrasts. The artist considers himself to be the carrier of thoughts that have long existed in the universality and permanence of nature. In his work, he often connects the microcosm to the macroscopic world, let us rethink our position in the universe.

He said: "The essence of all your experience is coming into an artwork. It is as simple as that but also as complicated as that." 

Laib also presents his feelings from his life experiences, he is using the quietest way to put his emotions into his sculptures. Like the first milkstones he made, it expresses his feelings in the hospital at the time. Consisting of a rectangular polished pure white marble, the top centrer of the surface is carefully sanded to form a subtle depression. Laib fills the recessed part with milk, thus allowing the unity of the ephemeral milk with the solid density of the white marble.

在課上認識到了這個藝術家，當時就被他一張蹲在地上將黃色粉末篩在地上的照片吸引了。一下就感覺到他對藝術的態度，那麼的細心，那麼的真誠。
最近的我深深地感受到了對藝術還是要以一顆最樸實的心，並不需要追求什麼華麗，美感，令人震撼的作品。無論是情緒，或是幻想，只是要真心地表達出我想說的，我的小世界就足夠了。看得越多越覺得藝術不必要這麼複雜，想想從前的藝術不也就是記錄每個人當時生活的一種形式嗎。

我也覺得很驚奇，竟然能從這個極簡藝術家中獲得這樣的感想。或許就是因為作品本身的簡單，從而突出了藝術家那刻純粹的心吧。

Wolfgang Laib受東方哲學的影響，特別是古老道家和老子的哲學思想。在作品中他表現了過去與現在，短暫與永恆之間的關係。他把會腐壞的有機材料，（花粉，牛奶，木材和米）與會持久存在的（花崗岩，大理石和黃銅）組合在一起并形成對比。藝術家認為自己是那些早已存在於自然界的普遍性和永恆性的思想載體。在他的作品中，他常常會將微觀世界聯繫到宏觀的世界中，讓我們重新思考我們在宇宙中存在的位置。

他的作品還會表現出他對生活經歷的感受，它使用最安靜地方式，將自己的情感細心注入進物體中。像是這個milkstones，表達的是他當時在醫院內的感受。由一個抛光的正方形纯白色大理石组成，在頂部表面的中心部分進行了細緻的打磨，形成了一個微妙的凹陷。Laib從中用牛奶填充凹陷部分，从而使短暂的牛奶与白色大理石的坚固密度保持一致。

NOTE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-_92MYcANk