It begins in a language

»Things and images each narrate in their own form. It begins in a language of seeing that makes contact with the mind and the ­senses, to branch out from there. A connect­ion emerges that encompasses whatever the contemplation has invented. While what is present and what is remembered reflect the apparently inexplic­­a­ble, an image of ­individual perception emerges. A narrative continues to grow, fed by small ­visual idiosyncrasies and outrageous obser­vations.« This is what Michel Sauer writes about his work. The artist, born in 1949, studied in ­Karls­ruhe with Horst Antes and Emil Schumacher, ­received the Junger Westen art prize in 1972, was a fellow of the Villa Massimo in 1980 and, in 1994, was awarded the Villa Romana Prize, after which he taught at the University of Siegen from 1994 to 2014. This volume presents an ­overview of his work from the 1970s through 2022, with sculptural work, according to editor Eva Schmidt, at the center of the artist’s interest. Michel Sauer has always regarded his sculptural work as an abstracting perception of a combi­nation of improvisation and practical experience with the materials wood, zinc, copper, and brass. This, he says, has been instrumental in his search for the unity of imagined and remembered images – a unity that is realized in the medial interplay of poetry and its always possible »materialization«.

Exhibition:
annenx14, Zurich, 24/2 – 1/4/2023