Contemporary Art Daily

Artist: Toby Ziegler

Venue: Max Hetzler, Berlin

Date: November 20, 2009 – January 30, 2010

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin

Press Release:

Galerie Max Hetzler is pleased to present British artist Toby Ziegler’s first solo exhibition in Germany.

In recent years Ziegler has developed a vocabulary based on computer manipulated imagery. This exhibition features recent paintings, sculptures and collages that bring together motifs derived from a wide range of sources, including portraits of the Freud family, Egyptian sculpture, and Nineteenth Century landscape painting.

Ziegler makes use of the computer to generate forms for his sculptures, and to manipulate layers of pattern to create pictorial space in the 2-D works. The physical realisation of these digital forms allows mistakes and idiosyncracies to creep into the rigorous schematic process. He revels in the slippage between the virtual and actual, and furthermore in the very physical acts of distorting, damaging and distressing the materials. It’s as though he’s giving them a good poke to make sure that they really exist. The title of one work The Art of Sinking refers to an essay by Alexander Pope, in which he first defined the term ‘bathos’, suggesting that there is poignancy and humour in the juxtaposition of the sublime and the base.

The works on paper are made of several layers of ripped ink-jet images. The sculptures are constructed from hundreds of polygons of oxidized aluminium. They depict familiar icons which have suffered a loss of resolution, underscoring the way a symbolic character can evolve. The paintings are a hybrid construct of landscape and cloud imagery, the contours of figures, meshes of geometric pattern and gestural brush strokes which challenge the viewer to tease out the fractured narratives. While Ziegler provides the viewer with some access to follow his path he intentionally leaves room for personal interpretation.

Toby Ziegler, born in London in 1972, studied at Central St Martins College of Art and Design. He lives and works in London.

Ziegler has participated in several solo and group exhibitions including Hamsterwheel, initiated by Franz West, Malmö Konsthall, Malmö, Sweden (2008); Recent Abstraction, British Art Display 1500-2007; Tate Britain, London (2007); build architecture, Camden Arts Centre, London (2006); Archipeinture: artists build architecture, Le Plateau, Paris (2006) and The Future Lasts a Long Time, Le Consortium, Dijon (2005).

His work is featured in major private and public collections including The Arts Council (London); the British Council (UK); Tate Britain (London); Saatchi Gallery (London); François Pinault collection, Paris; Hudson Valley Centre for Contemporary Art (US) and Museum of Old and New Art, Tasmania (Australia).

Link: Toby Ziegler at Max Hetzler