Overview: Wolfgang Laib: Returning to What Is

The interview by Jorgensen gives an insight on Wolfgang Laib art practice and the truth of his work, that of it being his life and evoking his life. It is an intimate discussion on his art practice and how he naively- as Laib describes it- believes that art can change the world. He as an artist has a real utopian view on art, how if it is real good it can include everything in life and humanity, art, as he describes it is important. His art practice and his studio evoke this sense that it is his life’s work, it is incredibly methodical and engulfing in his day to day life, and his studio reflect on his work completely and is a big influence on his what he does for his studio is mostly glass and he lives in the middle of a landscape. As an overview the interview gives an intimate discussion with the artist, you could literally feel his presence when you read it, it is not detached rather it connects the audience with the artist and it gives his reading on his work, rather than an author or a journalist.

The interview introduces him as an artist being German and his early career beginning in the 1970’s and how he has been immensely successful since this time, it introduces the movements he was affiliated with and what people of said about his work and then discussed further with the man himself on his opinions of this. The interview begins with discussing the mediums he uses and why. He describes his work as having an abstract quality by taking materials of nature out of nature attaining purity. The pollen for example, is intensified and abstracted when it moves from the natural environment into the gallery. It is intense for you see the pollen away from the meadow and nature into artificial light making it about the pollen itself, which makes it also abstract for it is in an unnatural environment. He as an artist has been described as nature artist, and in this way, as his practice has been briefly described goes against this view for though he uses material of nature, his work is not about the environment its about the detachment of the materials environment- it is not about the meadows it is about the pollen itself.

The interview goes on further to discuss his views on the art world and his detachment from it; it also discusses his beliefs and why he became an artist. He is detached from the art world mainly because of his art practice and his studio, he was isolated from the beginning and his studio has remained constant throughout his practice, his studio being in the meadows of a small village of Southern Germany. He describes his studio as I said of being of big influence to his work “the windows go all around to the floor and you can just sit even while there is snow outside” it is involving but in the same way isolating him from the art world, but not from what he believes art to be which he stresses in the interview, for he believes art can change the world. This is the reason why he became an artist because he believes Art is the most important thing, because it can evoke everything in life (if it is good), it involves everything and is the now in society, and this way he challenges himself in his art to create good artwork.

In conclusion the interview is insightful and gives a personal account on Wolfgang Laib as an artist and provides the audience with an inside perspective on his art practise and his “thoughts on the function of art in the world”.