Thomas Geiger: Skulptürchen

In his works, Thomas Geiger examines social structures by revealing the artistic potential of objects and actions which in everyday life are generally only noticed incidental. He uses interventions and actions to focus on these objects and situations, and in doing so he turns them into his artistic expression.

The starting point in Geiger’s artistic practice is always the public space. The city is a living space, a dwelling, a workplace, a playground, a political stage and sometimes also a battlefield. It is interior and exterior space at the same time, a public place that is also anonymous, a place of disobedience and of etiquette. Geiger enters this space sometimes as an observer, and sometimes as an active protagonist.

As soon as visitors set foot in the gallery, they encounter the work “Skulptürchen” (lit. “Little Sculpture”, though this is a pun because “türchen” means “little door”), which links the interior space of the gallery directly with the exterior. The front door is held open by an absurd quantity of doorstops of all shapes and sizes, all stolen by the artist from various sites in Brussels. What caused the doors to fall shut there, here keep the gallery door open, thus helping to dismantle any apprehension about entering. The gallery – actually a space used by a very specific public – opens itself up to casual passers-by.

“Bilder aus der Denkmaschine” (“Images from the Thinking Machine”) shows photographs deriving from the artist’s daily work with the Thinking Machine - an object consisting of three revolving discs which show about 50 adjectives and nouns each . Thomas Geiger has turned the discs every morning since 2008. The resulting combination of words serves as the basis and filter for his perception during the respective day, and results in a picture captured in the form of a photograph, video or short text. The archive that has built up over the years resembles a diary that documents not only the daily environment but also the development of a personal perception over the years. The Images from the Thinking Machine are on view for the first time in this form.

The work “Brüsseler Steine” (“Stones of Brussels”) is based on a performance which was examined by Thomas Geiger in Brussels. Inspired by the multitude of paving stones that lie around in the city and especially in the European district, he began to pick these up and walk around with them in his hand. A stone in the hand leads to numerous disconcerted looks of passers-by and is immediately connected with violent confrontations and demonstrations. However, the artist is not only interested in this irritation, but also in his personal experience during the action: how does his own gait change when carrying a stone in his hand, is he himself capable of throwing a stone, and in what circumstances? A pile of Brussels Stones in the exhibition invites the visitors to re-do the action and to experience it for themselves by picking up a stone and carrying it in their hands through the streets of Munich.

Thomas Geiger was born in Schopfheim in 1983, and studied at the Kunstakademie in Karlsruhe and the Kunstiakadeemia in Tallinn. In Karlsruhe he was a master student of Prof. Meuser, and won the Kunstakademie Karlsruhe prize. His works have been shown at numerous exhibitions in Germany and abroad, for example at the Kunsthalle Basel, the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, the Kunstverein Kassel, the FRAC in Marseille, and the Emily Harvey Foundation in New York. Thomas Geiger lives in Brussels and Vienna and is co-founder of the Mark Pezinger Verlag a publishing house for artists' books. Most recently he won the studio grant awarded by the state of Baden-Würtemberg, which allows him to spend six months in Paris.