Martin Walde

Martin Walde (*1957) has since the 1980s been engaged in expanding the concept of art and of nature. Does art need an author and nature an observer? Where does the environment end and where does culture begin? In the exhibition, artificial objects begin to proliferate and their natural growths are given an architectural stylization. Substances are brought to the bounds of their material states, and our fantasy is fired by poetic assertions of stardust. Penned-in weather balloons become curious creatures, everyday utensils giant flowers. Martin Walde transforms the Kunstraum into a garden full of cultures that strangely resemble an artificial world. He creates arrangements that call on us to complete his artistic work: via playful processes that more than occasionally recall natural ones.

Severin Dünser, curator

Martin Walde was born in 1957 in Innsbruck and lives and works in Vienna. Besides his many contributions, such as to the Venice Biennale (1986 and 2001), the Istanbul Biennale (1989) and Documenta X in Kassel (1997), he has enjoyed solo exhibitions at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst in Ghent (1984), the Generali Foundation in Vienna (1989), the Wiener Secession in Vienna (1996), the Villa Arson in Nice (2003), the Kunsthaus Baselland in Basel (2006), the ZKM Karlsruhe (2009) und the MARTa Herford in Herford (2010).