Tobias Pilz
- Lives and works in Vienna
EXHIBITIONS (SELECTION)
- Überwachsen und ausgespült, Kunstraum Super, Wien 2023
- a to b, Druckwerk Lustenau 2023
- Logic at Play, AG Gallery, Riga 2023
- Supported Supposition or The Mustard Seed, LLLLLL, Wien 2023
- Brigitte Kowanz ECT, Parallel Vienna, 2022
- Ok, Regina, Kassel 2022
- Oh Mini Golf, F23, Wien 2021
- Effeff, Index Festival - One Mess Gallery, Wien 2019
- Hätte ich doch lieber bei Amazon bestellt, Über das Neue, Belvedere 21, Wien 2019
- EVERYTHING IS FINE - Oberfläche Mit Gefühl, 365 Festival, Dessous, Wien 2018
- God is a Waiter, Fluc, Wien 2017
- Passierschein K2, Kunstraum Super, Wien 2017
- Lightness and Matter, Kunstraum Niederösterreich, Wien 2017
- OMG Armory Safety Solutions, OMG Gallery, Parallel Vienna, 2016
- OMG WTF, OMG Gallery, Wien 2016
- Look at me now, Inoperable Gallery, Wien 2015
- Pink Aussen, OMG Gallery, Parallel Wien, 2015
- Im Dunklen Fahrrad fahren, Tobias Pilz/Anna Reisenbichler, Ubik Space, Wien, 2014
- Heuriges 014, Kunsthalle m3, Berlin, Ausstellungsraum, Wien 2014
- Fotografie-Objekt-Bild(Raum), Fotogalerie Wien, 2013
- Interstate, Kubatur des Kabinetts, Fluc, Wien, 2013
- Heuriges 013, Ausstellungsraum, Wien 2013, Kunsthalle m3, Berlin 2013
- The Baltimore Crime Scene, Studios Lenikus, Wien, 2012
- Studio shows, Bauernmarkt 9, Wien, 2012
- Blossoms of Multitude, Künstlerhaus Palais Thurn & Taxis, Bregenz, 2011
- Les nuits blanches, Das weisse Haus, Wien, 2010
- Repurpose, mo.ë, Wien, 2010
- Zwischenspiel, Vertikale Galerie - Verbund, Wien 2009
- The Essence, Die Angewandte, Wien 2009
- Warten, Soho Ottakring, Ragnahof, Wien, 2009
- ca. 2 yo, Coded Cultures Fesitval, Wien, 2009
- A Piece of Water, Künstlerhaus, Wien, 2009
- Luring Into, Die Angewandte - Heiligenkreuzerhof, Wien, 2008
- The Plan B, 44 sic, Antwerp, 2008
CONTACT
studio@tobiaspilz.net- Text for the exhibition at LLLLLL, May 2023
Supported Supposition or The Mustard Seed
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God made the earth, but the earth had no base and so
under the earth he made an angel. But the angel had no
base and so under the angel’s feet he made a crag of ruby.
But the crag had no base and so under the crag he made a
bull endowed with four thousand eyes, ears, nostrils,
mouths, tongues and feet. But the bull had no base and so
under the bull he made a fish named Bahamut, and under
the fish he put water, and under the water he put darkness,
and beyond this men’s knowledge does not reach. [...]
So immense and dazzling is Bahamut that the eyes of man
cannot bear its sight. All the seas of the world, placed in one
of the fish’s nostrils, would be like a mustard seed laid in the desert.
- Veronika Hauer, in Bilder, Fotografie/Objekt/Bild(Raum), Fotogalerie Wien 272/2013, 2013
- Translation by Charlotte Allen
At first I consider a photo like this* to be one that was captured in a moment, composed by chance. I perceive it as a snapshot, the elements of which have been brought together by unconnected authors over a long period of time. Doesn’t every site exist mainly as an outcome of an endless stream of (un)intentional human action? But maybe we don’t look at these interventions in detail until one element vehemently makes its mark in the wrong place. In this case I’m referring to cardboard boxes, of the sort that are used in our daily lives as transport or archive containers for the goods that we possess (or would like to have). In Tobias Pilz’s photographic work these casings appear as objects, positioned in homogeneous groups in the centre of the picture. Take ‘Bahnhofsstrasse’, for example, in which Tobias Pilz changes the boxes’ arrangement, their format, and by using a subtle aesthetic trick, such as a white cross in the corner, their composition too. Pilz uses this same aesthetic gimmick or staging intervention in the discreet composition of the pictorial layers in which these clamorous elements are placed. Photographed in various settings, indoors and out, these objects always appear in the absence of a deliveryman or recipient. The object is thereby released from its narrative context and given an existence beyond its commodity status and an independence from ownership. This existence as an autonomous object will not last for long but it is captured here.
At first I take an object like this** to be a found one. I assume it to be a bizarre object that fell of a truck and was then run over by another truck. Or an implosion broke through the form, turned it inside out and sucked the product print through to the inside. The counterintuitive approach. Tobias Pilz has convoluted the blueprint of a functionally efficient cuboid that serves as a basis for many systems of stackable (lightweight) packaging, by adding another side. This form has defied the limits of its functionality.
* Bauernmarkt, 2012
** Dole, Fyffies, Fairtrade, 2011
- Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Vienna 2018
Tobias Pilz’s untitled object of 2012 may at first appear like a sculpture from the classic repertoire of Minimal Art. Yet this sculpture, with its sideways bulge, is covered in a special material called Tolex - a type of practical and reasonably priced artificial leather used mainly for guitar amplifiers. The sculpture’s form reflects this as it is based specifically on a mass-produced amp from the company Marshall. Pilz describes how such amplifiers are ‘linked to many dreams and emotions’ for guitar players.(1) Popular culture, with its background of (often unrealized) hopes, thus collides with Minimal Art in this piece. Its predecessors are the cardboard boxes that Pilz extended and transformed into objects that are neither open nor closed - again playing with a minimal form that has been made more complex.
Although Pilz frequently constructs or choreographs sculptures and photographs, his photo piece Baño, is a ‘found photograph’.(2) Its harmonious colour scheme seems to indicate that it illustrates a model although it actually depicts the bathroom facilities at a youth hostel, described by the artist as being somewhere in Guatemala. It is a puzzling setting, simultaneously personal and anonymous. While you can clearly appreciate the careful positioning of the decorative tiles on the wall, there are no personal objects in this apparently intimate situation - after all, nobody leaves their toothbrush in the communal bathroom. The image also contains references to abstraction: the blue mirrors could equally be monochrome paintings. And narrative elements are implied in the background where we can see an array of objects, probably cleaning equipment, on a type of pedestal. Stage set and still life are combined here into a composition that is full of mysteries but at the same time remains unspectacular.
1 In conversation with the author, Atelier Tobias Pilz, Vienna, 25 November 2016.
2 Ibid.
Muslim tradition quoted from Jorge Luis Borges: The Book of Imaginery Beings, Penguin Books, 1974
******
Support
Latin sub - from below
Latin portare - to carry
1. bear all or part of the weight of; hold up
2. give assistance to, especially financially
3. suggest the truth of, corroborate
4. (of a computer or operating system) allow the use or operation of (a program, language, or device)
5. endure, tolerate
Suppose
Latin sub - from below
Latin ponere - to place
1. think or assume that something is true or probable but lack proof or certain knowledge
2. be required to do something because of the position one is in or an argument one has made
Definitions by Oxford Languages, Oxford University Press