To the O, To the F, to the J
€ 950
Axel Loytved transforms everyday objects into autonomous art objects by means of simple or complicated, occasionally destructive processes. His formal sculptural composition is thus often preceded by the dissolution and disappearance of the source material: shelves are shredded, jute bags filled with cement, plastic bags perforated. Loytved counters the rationalized consumer world that spawned one or the other of his materials with a playful experiment, which generates unexpected, random forms. He renders non-durable articles of everyday use useless and in turn lends them an ironic aura of impermanence.
In the Remise of the Kunstverein, Axel Loytved (*1982 in Bad Mergentheim, lives in Hamburg) is presenting, among other works, a very recent one: From the A to the B to the X to the F to the D to the Z to the E to the O to the P to the C to the H to the I to the J to the W (2013) consists of fourteen bronze sculptures that are lying in apparently random order on the floor of the exhibition space. The curious forms are reminiscent of rocks of cosmic origin or archeological finds. However, they come from almost outrageously profane sources: Loytved collected those chunks of snow that form next to the tires of a car on the body floor and preserved the abstract random objects, in a permanent process of dissolution, in bronze casts patinated black. He used the principle of the “lost form,” in which the plaster cast is ultimately destroyed in order to scrape out the bronze. This produces permanent sculptures of the fleeting moment of a form in which structures of natural ice crystals and industrially manufactured car parts meet.
Axel Loytved studied with Nicola Torke, Raimund Kummer, and Christoph Schlingensief at the Braunschweig University of Art and was awarded the master student prize in 2010. This was followed by the NORDWEST Art Award from the Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven (2011) as well as the working scholarship from the City of Hamburg (2013). His works have been presented at the Falckenberg Collection in Hamburg, at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, and at the Kunstverein Wolfsburg, among other venues. As the scholarship holder of the award Junge Kunst in Essen (Young Art in Essen), the Kunsthaus Essen devoted a solo exhibition to him in 2010. Axel Loytved is the co-founder and mem-ber of various projects and artists’ groups, first and foremost the Kunstverein St. Pauli, which was founded in 2006.
The exhibition is being supported by:
Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur