Thomas Rentmeister

(Germany) *1964 in Reken

Playing with highly diverse everyday materials – whether building materials, consumer goods or foodstuffs – runs like a common thread through the works of the sculptor and installation artist Thomas Rentmeister. His sculpture “Square Tubes (Looping)”, on display in Blickachsen 13, is, like many of Rentmeister’s works, made of industrially produced material: the interconnected ventilation ducts made of zinc-plated sheet steel, seem, in the Schlosspark, to have landed in the wrong place. Where is the factory, where these items come from? Where is the building, in which they could be installed? Transferred into a new context, this sculpture suddenly seems to trigger another form of perception, steering attention towards the often hidden aesthetic of its everyday material. Depending on how the light hits its surface, the sheet metal appears either matt grey or coated in white reflections. The ventilation shaft goes into an absurd loop, ending at both ends in squashed, crushed deformations, in which the play of light increases once again.
Thomas Rentmeister studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and has shown his works all over Europe in numerous solo and group exhibitions. Since 2009 he has held a professorship at the Braunschweig University of Art.