GALLERY WEEKEND BERLIN #09

Courtesy of Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin. Photos: Nick Ash

A system of steel frames, each about the size of a doorway, a composition based on three modules: an equilateral triangle, a square, and a parallelogram. For Schinkel Pavillon, Oscar Tuazon creates an extensive new sculpture. He configures the modules into a range of different spaces and passages to then add elements alongside and within the modular system. Complex and immense, the steel sculpture reacts to the transparency of the glass pavilion.

Tuazon’s sculptural works are situated between architecture and performance. But the artist uses the language of architecture in an abstract way and other than actual architecture he creates problems: His site-specific interventions transform their surrounding or rather challenge the space until something goes wrong. Based on a rudimentary sketch, Tuazon inhabits the space he is working in and breaks it down. The results deliberately bear the traces of physical labor and testify to the artist’s fascination with the entropic quality of both, natural materials and the unlikely combination of construction materials. With the latter he recalls the tradition of DIY-architecture. In formal terms, Tuazon’s sculptural works display loose links with the development of minimal and land art by artists such as Sol LeWitt or Michael Heizer, but they are brute and anti-monumental. Often his artworks can be used in some way – without being truly functional.

Courtesy of Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin. Photos: Nick Ash

Courtesy of Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin. Photos: Nick Ash

Courtesy of Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin. Photos: Nick Ash

Courtesy of Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin. Photos: Nick Ash

Courtesy of Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin. Photos: Nick Ash

Courtesy of Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin. Photos: Nick Ash

Courtesy of Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin. Photos: Nick Ash