Sandbichler is a conceptual sculptor. Starting with the plane, he develops form and space by folding, kinking and reshaping geometrical volumes. The traditional craft of origami, which he learned in Japan, Buckminster Fuller’s architectural construction principles, and the packaging industry provide him with technical inspiration, in order to develop the plane “abstractly into space in the minimalist serial raster,” as the artist says.

The latest exhibition by Peter Sandbichler, entitled mind the crap, beside the extensive installation “Shrine”, consisting of 112 recycled bicycle carton elements, includes six very finely wrought origami works that surprise us with their precise folding and the resulting play of light and shadow. These two-dimensional images and text passages, dealing with socially relevant topics, chosen by the artist from quality print media (Die Zeit), through folding become three-dimensional herringbone patterns, and are conveyed from a political onto a new aesthetic level. The show is supplemented by seven “Alte Schachteln” (lit. old boxes), sculptures made from aluminium, bronze and weatherproof UHPC (concrete), with the texture of cardboard boxes that the artist has explicitly conceived for being used as indoor and outdoor seating furniture. The materiality of paper, with its mutability and reusability, is mirrored in all the works of the exhibition and lets the visitor rediscover their very own approach to this material.

Peter Sandbichler (b. 1964), who lives and works in Vienna, attended the Art Students League in New York, studied sculpture with Wander Bertoní and Bruno Gironcoli at the University of Applied Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and as a postgraduate at the Institute for New Media of the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. International exhibitions at galleries and art institutions since 1993, e.g. 1993 Trans- Form, Ars Electronica, Linz; 1995 46th Venice Biennial, Austrian pavilion (with Constanze Ruhm); 1996 knot.project, New York; 1999 Your private Sky, Museum für Gestaltung, Zurich; 1999 copy&paste – drag&drop, Kunstraum Innsbruck; 2001 Lebenskapsel, Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin; 2002 Galerie Grita Insam, Vienna; 2002 Variable Stücke, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck; 2004 Niemandsland. Modelle für den öffentlichen Raum, Künstlerhaus, Vienna; 2005 project space, ARCO Madrid; 2007 B Lounge, Galerie Belvedere, Vienna; 2008 Accumulation, Pékin Fine Arts, Beijing; 2010 sustain, Galerie Grita Insam, Vienna; 2011 Wahrheit ist die Erfindung eines Lügners, Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck; 2011 Der Künstler ist anwesend, Kunstraum Bernsteiner, Vienna; 2012 schwarze Schafe, permanent town square design, Stockerau; 2013/2014 Behind the Curtain, Kunstraum Weikendorf; 2015 facade design, Arbeiterkammer, Vienna; 2015 Skulpturen, Gironcoli Museum next to the Herberstein Castle gardens; 2015/2016 Peter Sandbichler, Galerie Elisabeth & Klaus Thoman Vienna; 2017 facade design, Varta Haus, Vienna.

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