BRUSSELS.- Florian Roithmayr’s work explores a concern for activities and relationships that shape environments, supported by his investigation of empathy in various forms of production, including archaeology, conservation or pedagogy. He is known for a diverse practice often emphasizing the process of moulding and casting as both documentary and transitory exchange that leaves subtle traces. Central to these processes is the peeling open of layers to reveal the generative gap between shapes, surfaces and materials that form and yield another. In this hidden and unobserved space, the gesture of contact and touch continues to reappear and proliferate throughout the history of sculpture.
SERVICE refers to the inconsistency between intangible engagements that produce no concrete material results and the substantial inventory needed to assist and sustain exchanges or provisions. The set of actions and solutions to deliver services are often incongruous to any clear outcomes; their speed doesn’t allow language to attach itself to their performance; and their benefits might be postponed indefinitely. The residues left by such activities might often appear slight and indistinct.
The past few years have seen Roithmayr’s practice informed by long periods spent as apprentice in concrete restoration, in car alteration industries or on excavation sites in the Sudanese desert. For this exhibition of new works, Roithmayr draws on these secluded and intimate engagements. SERVICE focuses on the shifting materiality that facilitates and registers actions and solutions to perform the transfer of assistance or the delivery of repair and upkeep, and their combined transitive potential for art. These are slowed down forms of production; they often require intense attention and commitment without any definite aims.
The exhibition presents new works including The Attendants (2014), a series of repeated figure-like sculptures consisting of hollow breastplates that could be part of liveries or uniforms. Cast in concrete and papier-mâché, they emphasize surface and a breakdown of volume, similar to works by late 19th century artists like Wilhelm Lehmbruck or Medardo Rosso. In Endstart (2014), drooping and worn-out shoulder straps are lined up along a wooden rack, seemingly exhausted but still keeping in line; a moment of rest, before they are activated again and employed elsewhere. Made from low-value industrial or discarded materials, they waver between the humble or minimal intervention that positions sculpture as temporary and fugitive. Resigned to act and generate rather than understand, the protagonist in Robert Walser’s novel The Assistant wonders, “What is it that I’m accomplishing? What services have I provided to date? I’m firmly convinced that my lord and master hasn’t yet derived much benefit from me. Could I be lacking initiative, enthusiasm, flair?”. The assistant isn’t accomplishing anything, he knows little of what he is assisting with, he is not aware of the services he is rendering. His dilemma reveals what seems like withdrawal, inactivity or speechlessness to be either an escalation of commitment or the motivation for emancipation. It’s as if by suspending comprehension and benefits, SERVICE becomes the implausible support to register the fleeting nature of transmission and exchange.
Florian Roithmayr was born in 1976 in Rosenheim, Germany. Lives and works in London.
Recent solo exhibitions include Matter of Engagement, Site Gallery, Sheffield, 2014, Florian Roithmayr, Treignac Project, France, BURG, Laure Genillard Gallery, London. With Alexander Heim, Assault, THE SCHTIP, Sheffield (all in 2013). Recent group shows include Annals of the 25th Century, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire, Hey Mr. Poetic, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire (all in 2014), Grand Magasin, French Riviera, London. A project with Nat Breitenstein, The Y, Rowing Projects, London, O Chair O Flesh, Treignac Project, France, £5.34, Carl Freedman, London.
