Wolfgang Laib

Sperone Westwater is pleased to announce Towers of Silence, Wolfgang Laib’s ninth solo at the gallery. The main room will feature five monumental beeswax sculptures in the shape of houses, towers and ziggurats reminiscent of Mesopotamian religious step pyramids and Christian reliquary shrines. Laib utilizes simple, organic materials that are often linked to sustenance, such as pollen, milk, beeswax and rice. The beeswax sculptures have been described by poet and art critic Donald Kuspit as representing “the enlightenment, transcendence and selflessness the monk pursues through meditation–the inner solitude necessary for higher consciousness.” Influenced by Eastern cultures, especially Zen Buddhism, Laib’s process is centered on ritual and repetition, a meditation on transformation and the concurrence of the permanent and the transient. “The beeswax has a beauty that is incredible, that is beyond imagination, something which you cannot believe is a reality–and it is the most real,” says Laib. “I could not make it myself, I could not create it myself, but I can participate in it.”

Eighteen black-and-white photographs of sanctuaries, cemeteries and other sacred ritual spaces will be on view for the first time at Sperone Westwater in the East gallery, offering insights into the landscapes that have been influential in the artist’s work. Upstairs will be six new works on Burmese and Hahnemuehle paper reprising recurring motifs from the artist’s poetic and highly symbolic oeuvre. These works on paper, created in response to the sculptures, reveal the Laib’s meditative and conceptual approach.

Born in 1950 in Metzingen, Germany, Wolfgang Laib originally studied medicine but became disillusioned with Western medicine and its dependency on logic and the material world. Since 1975, Laib has worked exclusively as an artist and has built an international reputation. Laib’s 2000-2003 retrospective, organized by the American Federation of the Arts, traveled to the Hirshhorn Museum; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Dallas Museum of Art; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; and Haus der Kunst, Munich. Subsequently, Laib presented museum solo exhibitions at the Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou (2004); Fondation Beyeler, Basel (2005-2006); MUAC (Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo), Mexico City (2009); The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City (2009-2010); and MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (2010). In 2013, Laib’s Pollen from Hazelnut was on view at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Laib Wax Room at The Phillips Collection opened in March of the same year. In 2015, Laib was awarded the Praemium Imperiale award for sculpture. A major solo exhibition of his work was presented at MASI Lugano in Switzerland in 2017-18. Other recent solo exhibitions include “Wolfgang Laib: Crossing the River” at Bündner Kunstmuseum, Switzerland (2022); “Wolfgang Laib: The Beginning of Something Else” at Kunstmuseum Stuttgart (2023); “Wolfgang Laib: Passageway” at Villa e Collezione Panza, Varese (2023-24); and “Wolfgang Laib. A Mountain not to climb on. For Monet” at Musée de l’Orangerie (2024). Laib’s work is in private and public collections worldwide, including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Centre Pompidou, Paris; CAPC (Musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux); Kunstmuseum Bonn; Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; and Kunstmuseum Stuttgart. Laib had his first solo exhibition with Sperone Westwater in 1979 and subsequent shows in 1981, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1998, 2013, and 2018. He lives and works between Germany, New York and India.