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Lot Essay
‘The present’ masses together. Attracts everything to it. Hurls the past, tears the future – back to the moment. 50 years after the communist version of ‘collective culture’ things are dense enough for that, the world has condensed – in the thicket of machines.’ THOMAS BAYRLE
Thomas Bayrle’s Römische Treppe (Roman Steps) exemplifies the Frankfurt artist’s unique approach to mind-melting visual modification, employed as a scintillating device with which to critique popular culture. The Platonic form of a Roman stylobate, light in tone and exact in execution, is interrupted by an anamorphic projection of a head, reminiscent of Michelangelo’s David. The pattern of this form is manifested by the rippling lines of the stairs, creating a humorous conceit that thematically concords with the antique design of the stylobate.
Inspired by the capitalist realism of German pop and the Frankfurt School, Bayrle’s work responds to a saturation of mass-media in post-war Europe. In Römische Treppe, the uncanny fusion of archetypal staircase and sculptural head resonates with Bayrle’s affection for kitsch imagery, which is stylistically supported by a flat, commercial approach to the handling of acrylic paint. Whilst this painstakingly considered and precise technique prefigures the three-dimensional computer graphics and digital media of succeeding decades, it also cunningly alludes to the mechanical means of mass-reproduced imagery prominent in a post-war consumerist culture. The fluidity with which Bayrle plunges manipulated representations of the past into his innovative compositions, whilst re-appropriating art-historical icons, reflects his proclamation that ‘‘the present’ masses together. Attracts everything to it. Hurls the past, tears the future – back to the moment’ (T. Bayrle, letter to the Frankfurter Rundschau 1980/81, quoted in Thomas Bayrle: All in One, exh. cat., Wiels, Brussels, 2013, p. 150).
Bayrle’s stylistic practice was born out of his apprenticeship at a weaver’s workshop. Fascinated and engrossed by the intricate patterns of the textiles, Bayrle encountered a series of hallucinations that inspired him to create biomorphic ‘superforms’, mimetically conjuring a total pictogram out of a complex system of homogenous fragments. At the start of the 1970s, Bayrle developed this approach by fracturing the structures of graphs, sheet music, repetitious designs (such as a grid of cheques) or, in the case of Römische Treppe, a Platonic form, in order to project faces. With this pictorial disturbance, Bayrle subverts the capitalist compulsion towards mass consumerism, whilst exhibiting a wondrous style that consistently delights in its compositional invention.
Thomas Bayrle’s Römische Treppe (Roman Steps) exemplifies the Frankfurt artist’s unique approach to mind-melting visual modification, employed as a scintillating device with which to critique popular culture. The Platonic form of a Roman stylobate, light in tone and exact in execution, is interrupted by an anamorphic projection of a head, reminiscent of Michelangelo’s David. The pattern of this form is manifested by the rippling lines of the stairs, creating a humorous conceit that thematically concords with the antique design of the stylobate.
Inspired by the capitalist realism of German pop and the Frankfurt School, Bayrle’s work responds to a saturation of mass-media in post-war Europe. In Römische Treppe, the uncanny fusion of archetypal staircase and sculptural head resonates with Bayrle’s affection for kitsch imagery, which is stylistically supported by a flat, commercial approach to the handling of acrylic paint. Whilst this painstakingly considered and precise technique prefigures the three-dimensional computer graphics and digital media of succeeding decades, it also cunningly alludes to the mechanical means of mass-reproduced imagery prominent in a post-war consumerist culture. The fluidity with which Bayrle plunges manipulated representations of the past into his innovative compositions, whilst re-appropriating art-historical icons, reflects his proclamation that ‘‘the present’ masses together. Attracts everything to it. Hurls the past, tears the future – back to the moment’ (T. Bayrle, letter to the Frankfurter Rundschau 1980/81, quoted in Thomas Bayrle: All in One, exh. cat., Wiels, Brussels, 2013, p. 150).
Bayrle’s stylistic practice was born out of his apprenticeship at a weaver’s workshop. Fascinated and engrossed by the intricate patterns of the textiles, Bayrle encountered a series of hallucinations that inspired him to create biomorphic ‘superforms’, mimetically conjuring a total pictogram out of a complex system of homogenous fragments. At the start of the 1970s, Bayrle developed this approach by fracturing the structures of graphs, sheet music, repetitious designs (such as a grid of cheques) or, in the case of Römische Treppe, a Platonic form, in order to project faces. With this pictorial disturbance, Bayrle subverts the capitalist compulsion towards mass consumerism, whilst exhibiting a wondrous style that consistently delights in its compositional invention.