Michail Pirgelis

Press preview                         
Wednesday, 1 July 2026, 10:30 a.m.

Opening
Thursday, 2 July 2026, 7 p.m.

Artist Talk
Friday, 3 July 2026, 2 p.m.

Exhibition duration     
3 July – 8 November 2026
Tue – Sun, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.

In his artistic practice, Michail Pirgelis approaches the subject of sculpture on multiple levels. His works explore the boundaries of our understanding of objects and expand the experience of sculpture in novel ways. For his first solo exhibition at an Austrian institution, he is creating a site-specific installation with new works in the historic assembly hall of Kunstraum Dornbirn.

Pirgelis works with found materials that he has collected over the last twenty years primarily from aircraft graveyards in the Mojave Desert in California and Nevada. He cuts out rows of windows, floors and aluminium outer walls from decommissioned passenger planes and processes them in his Cologne studio into wall works or free-standing sculptures. The individual components impose specific conditions on the artist through their structural and architectural characteristics, which Pirgelis integrates into his compositions: geometric patterns, signs of human use such as codes or markings, and perforations and rivets. The surfaces also bear traces of wear and tear from sun or sandstorms. Through stripping, grinding and polishing, Pirgelis exposes details and structures, revealing what would otherwise remain hidden. Targeted interventions and fragmentation allow him to transform the material into abstraction.

“My interest lies in materials from aviation, but what really drives me is the search for authentic materials with a distinct history. My aim is not to highlight or expose technical progress. Rather, I am interested in alienating the material from its purpose and pointing towards a different reality.”[1] – Michail Pirgelis

Through his material-based practice, Pirgelis develops a multi-layered system of art-historical and media references. His sculptures reactivate the mechanisms of the readymade as well as the conventions of post-minimalism and conceptual art – while simultaneously questioning them. Thus, while the works allude to minimalist sculptures in terms of material and form, their surfaces are deliberately left imperfect. Scratches create graphic elements, while remaining traces of paint evoke gestural qualities reminiscent of abstract expressionism. Fragments whose original materiality and origin remain visible are transformed into autonomous works that offer an independent aesthetic experience. This interplay between industrial readymade and transformative intervention creates a unique sculptural language that appeals to our collective memory and opens up new spaces of perception.

The historical architecture of Kunstraum Dornbirn, a former industrial site, provides a unique setting for Pirgelis’s works. Originally built for the final assembly of large steel components such as turbine systems for the Rüschwerke factory, the space offers a distinctive frame for the sculptures. Their textured surfaces and positioning respond to the hall’s raw structure, extending its history of use and transformation. At the same time, the autonomous presence of the works becomes vividly perceptible through their spatial arrangement and aesthetic potential.

[1] “Im Gespräch” (In Conversation) in “David Ostrowski Michail Pirgelis. To lose”, exhibition catalogue, Leopold-Hoesch-Museum & Papiermuseum Düren (Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2016), 130.

Michail Pirgelis (born in Essen, Germany, in 1976) lives and works in Cologne. In 2026, his work will be on display in two solo exhibitions: at Kunstraum München (February to April) and Kunstraum Dornbirn (July to November). His works have also been shown in numerous other solo exhibitions, including at Fuhrwerkswaage, Cologne, and Odyssey, Cologne (both 2022); Braunsfelder, Cologne (2019, with Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt); Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren (2016, with David Ostrowski); Autocenter Berlin (2015); and Artothek, Cologne (2011). Selected group exhibitions include Wilhelm Hallen, Berlin (2022); byvier, Cologne (2021); Ludwig Forum, Aachen, and Gewölbe, Cologne (both 2020); DuMont Kunsthalle, Cologne, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Haus N, Athens, and Riot, Ghent (all 2019); Sculpture in the City, London (2018–19), Athens Biennale; Kunstverein Reutlingen, and Marta Herford (all 2018); Rubell Family Collection, Miami (2015); Istanbul Modern (2014); Bundeskunsthalle Bonn (2013); Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen (2012); Thessaloniki Biennale (2011); Kunstmuseum Bonn (2010); and Stadtmuseum Düsseldorf (2005). Among the awards and scholarships he has received are the Berlin Scholarship from the Academy of Arts, Berlin (2013), the Audi Art Award for “New Positions” at Art Cologne (2010), the Adolf Loos Prize from the van den Valentyn Foundation, Cologne (as its first ever recipient, 2008) and the Villa Romana Prize, Florence (2007).