OLAF HOLZAPFEL | MICHAEL SAILSTORFER | Speaking Through Substance

In the exhibition Speaking Through Substance, two artists enter into a dialog that makes materiality visible as a carrier of history, energy and resistance and elevates it to the driving force behind the content of their works. For Olaf Holzapfel and Michael Sailstorfer, working with willow, straw, copper and neon is not a means to an end, but an examination of the conditions under which our material world is constituted.

The work Baum 1 (2022) by Olaf Holzapfel is a cylindrical form made of woven willow lying on the ground and is reminiscent of a body at rest. It is made using the same technique as in basketry. The work refers to the intangible cultural heritage of wickerwork, a universal method that is thousands of years old and always anchored locally. What is needed is woven from what the landscape provides. In this sense, Holzapfel sees weaving as a regional language. Holzapfel also shows three pictures made of straw with the titles Gesteck (2025), Roter Wald bei Wazuka (2025) and Zwischen den Jahren (2025). Their compositions result from the length and natural colors of the stalks of grain. In Holzapfel’s perspective, it is not only man who shapes the environment, but nature itself is a partner with character, helping to shape our tools, our construction methods and our everyday practices. In Holzapfel’s words, his works are about the idea of a “second nature”. Plants, be it willow or straw, are transformed into workable material through drying, soaking, peeling or cooking. When Holzapfel forms an object from these raw materials, which is given the title Baum, meaning tree, and it actually resembles a tree in appearance, a reference back is created. In this reversal, Holzapfel’s central concern becomes clear: Nature is not the outside of culture, but its inner structure. It is always present.

Michael Sailstorfer’s works from the Air Electric series (2025) are based on a reaction between electricity and matter. A fine copper mesh, stretched on a wooden frame, serves as a carrier for an electrochemical process. The negative pole of a power supply unit is connected to the copper, the positive pole to a stainless steel rod, the tip of which is encased in a fleece containing a silver electrolyte solution. When Sailstorfer touches the copper with the rod, the circuit closes and energy is released. At this moment, when the artist creates the picture, silver ions are deposited on the copper mesh. The combination of electricity, matter and movement creates paintings that are based on an electronic force. The second work is entitled Einfacher Stromkreis (2025) and shows an abstracted face that is reminiscent of both an archaic mask and a circuit diagram. The line formed from blue neon tubes oscillates between drawing and sign, between human physiognomy and machine-like structure. The blue light lends the work a timeless aura – cool, technical, like a reminiscence of early computer aesthetics. The work becomes a symbol, a luminous cipher between man and machine. Michael Sailstorfer’s works revolve around questions of energy and its transformation. Materials are not merely used, but changed by physical processes such as electricity or movement. In this field of tension, technical means develop their own, often unfathomable expressive power. At the same time, the human body, even without direct representation, always remains present as a scale and resonance space.

— Damian Jurt, curator, Bündner Kunstmuseum

Read the German version here.