Tobias Rehberger — who won the Golden Lion award for Best Artist at the 53rd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale for his design of the cafeteria in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni della Biennale — will speak for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 26. Photo by Wolfgang Günzel.
German conceptual artist Tobias Rehberger is known for creating a wide range of playful-yet-pointed objects and installations that explore the boundaries between public and private, function and aesthetics, original and reproduction.
At 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 26, Rehberger will discuss his work for the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ Public Lecture Series. Co-sponsored by the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, the talk is free and open to the public and takes place in Steinberg Hall Auditorium, located near the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards.
A reception for Rehberger immediately will precede the lecture, at 6 p.m., in the Kemper Art Museum, located immediately adjacent to Steinberg. For more information, call (314) 935-9300 or visit samfoxschool.wustl.edu.
Tobias Rehberger
Born in 1966 in Esslingen, Germany, Rehberger studied with artists Thomas Bayrle and Martin Kippenberger and earned an MFA degree from the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Kunst (Städelschule) in Frankfurt, where he now teaches.
Frequently evoking the design aesthetic of the 1960s and ’70s, Rehberger employs a variety of media, collaborators and conceptual approaches to develop sculpture, furniture, paintings, signage, environments, consumer goods and other projects that seem perfectly poised between utilitarian object, architectural space and autonomous artwork.
His series of art-cars, begun in 1999, consists of full-scale, drivable automobiles built from simple sketches — devoid of measurements or technical details — that Rehberger outsources to a workshop in Thailand.
Pumpkin Me (2004), an installation at the Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, consisted of a large room-within-a-room, painted bright orange and containing a single lamp, the switch for which was located in the bedroom of a 16-year-old German boy, also named Tobias Rehberger, who could flick it on and off at will.
Other projects range from Modernist treehouses in northern Germany to brightly tinted wallpaper consisting of photographs of Rehberger’s internal organs to a shooting range in which the targets are hybrid figures combining Bambi and Michael Jackson.
Last year, Rehberger won the Golden Lion award for Best Artist at the 53rd International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale for his design of the cafeteria in the Palazzo delle Esposizioni della Biennale. Titled Was du liebst, bringt dich auch zum Weinen (“The things you love also make you cry”), this fully functional, OpArt-inspired cafe juxtaposed brightly colored custom furniture — created in collaboration with Finnish manufacturer Artek — with bold, black-and-white patterns covering the walls, ceilings and floors.
Rehberger has exhibited throughout the United States and Europe, including solo shows at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Museu Serralves, Portugal; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago; and the Denver Art Museum. A monograph of his work, Public: Tobias Rehberger, 1997-2009, is forthcoming from Art Stock Books.
Additional support for Rehberger’s lecture is provided by Artek USA and Centro.
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WHO: Tobias Rehberger WHAT: Lecture WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Monday, April 26; Reception at 6 p.m. WHERE: Steinberg Hall Auditorium, intersection of Forsyth and Skinker boulevards; reception in Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, immediately adjacent to Steinberg COST: Free and open to the public SPONSORS: Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ Public Lecture Series, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Artek USA and Centro INFORMATION:(314) 935-9300 or samfoxschool@wustl.edu |
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