Tobias Rehberger
Galleria Giň Marconi, Milan
Through November 30
The fusion of discrete arts and, in particular, of visual artworks and design objects, started more than a century ago. Over the decades, numerous theoretical and philosophical interpretations have been proposed to explain the phenomenon, ranging from Bauhaus member Rietveld, to Dan Graham in the Seventies and Donald Judd in the Eighties. Today, it’s quite common on the contemporary art scene for young artists, such as Tobias Rehberger, to work in two or more creative disciplines: the aim of such experiments being to endow the work with a broader spectrum of practical social applications.
Tobias Rehberger comes near to achieving this. He furnishes existential questions, such as death and illness, with a somewhat ironic need for form or functional design, which falls into line with the confines of collective taste and fashion. It’s not coincidence that the “cubicles” on display in the artist’s Milanese solo show – monuments or colored, shiny burial chambers – are dedicated to two historical characters, a dictator and a fashion designer. The only common link between the two figures is the date on which they died, April 21. Death is celebrated through a carefully studied interplay of shapes, profiles, curves – perfect elements of design that seek, perhaps, to make the remembrance of a deceased person functional, in contrast to traditional commemorative forms.
Even when facing illness and somatic deformations that require prosthesis, Rehberger combines the functional nature of the orthopedic aid with a play on form and color. The artist constructs an exhibition of made-to-measure prosthesis for his own body, supplied by specialist centers. The installation forms a frustrated, if amusing, interpretation of contemporary research into prosthetics equipment. Emblematic examples include the pink prosthesis for Rehberger’s middle finger, which refers quite explicitly to a vulgar gesture, or the brown plastic left leg dressed in tights.
The traditional artistic process and lasting quality of fresco is also tainted with the transience of fashion and design. In Rehberger’s work it takes the shape of colored dust that partially covers the walls and ceiling of the gallery forming eye-catching marks and shapes. They are temporary, however: the acid green, violet, and crimson red pigment is destined to fall – slowly eroded away over time.
Paola Noé
Translation by Rosalind Furness
