Raphaël Langmair
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How can we flip an unfortunate event into something generous?


A problem, a misunderstanding, a coincidence as the beginning of new work: it brings about sculptures that are simple and plain, slightly elusive, and suddenly radical. Not significant at first sight, they uncover the provocative character of anti-spectacular things. Soaked off from their original setting, objects can relate to each other. Blown up into abstraction, just being there; natural and effortless.

Amid chaos and simplicity, these pieces celebrate the ordinary object in a spontaneous way. Sometimes expressing actual events, like glasses condensing in the presence of hot coffee, quickly pulling us out of our daily routine into the present. Liberal arts as resistance to the modern ethos of “total work”, occupying closely every faculty of modern life.

As Josef Pieper puts it; Leisure implies (in the first place) an attitude of non-activity, of inward calm, of silence; it means not being ‘busy’, but letting things happen.

I am inspired by the impulse of making. This instant - immediately before something is done, is still current directly after. Using reality and its objects as raw abstract material, in which chance can unfold itself, from beauty to catastrophe and vice versa.

On Certainty

2 0 2 2
M U L T I P L E >

FLIP
UPSIDE DOWN
AS NEEDED.

untitled (mistake) 2022

L’humour de la réalité

Graphic design
with special thanks to
Dominik Bachmann