Heimatloser Monolith 5

Even from afar Sabine Groß’s sculptures awake memories of the familiar: “Heimatloser Monolith” (Homeless Monolith), created for Blickachsen 13, appears like a giant package stuck together from different bits of carboard; “MonuMAX” seems like a tower of cardboard boxes of different sizes. Such packing materials are ever present in our consumer society; in the production of art, they usually remain reserved for drafts, rarely seen in public. On closer inspection, one discovers that the cardboard is merely a sham: in fact both sculptures are made of artfully painted gypsum, whose surface has been pictorially transformed. What seems like the unwanted remains of our widespread goods transport system is in reality a massive, finely worked placement in the landscape. Here Groß is also referencing the tradition of the pleasure garden, in which playful pretence, decorative constructions and optical illusions are important constituents. In her sculptures, she frequently confronts the basic parameters of the art business, subverting expectations of authenticity and aura in the museum, and questioning the myth of the artistic original.
Sabine Groß has exhibited all over Europe and teaches as professor at the art academy in Mainz.