Oliver Laric

With his works Oliver Laric (*1981 Innsbruck, lives in Berlin) makes an important artistic contribution to an aesthetic of digitalization and takes up themes such as the reappropriation of historical forms and the relationship of original and copy. The point of departure for his artistic works is sculptures from various eras, which he measures, copies, and reinterprets using photographic scanning processes and 3‑D printing technology.

He has been working with new technologies since 2006. In 2012 he was invited to participate in developing a project for the archaeological collection of the museum The Collection — Art and Archeology in Lincolnshire in Lincoln, England, which gave him the idea of scanning and digitalizing. He began by measuring selected archaeological finds and transferring the 3‑D data to a digital archive. With free access to the digital code, theoretically anyone has the opportunity to contribute to producing and disseminating the works. The material originals — for example, ancient sculptures — are in a sense liquified and turned into bodies of a cultural DNA that can be recombined and even altered at any time. The geometrical measurement data represents the objectifiable basic scaffold and the collective form of the figure. Any ​“copy” can be individually appropriated and interpreted by introducing different materials and colors in the printing process. Laric thus raises questions about the sculptural and about designability as such, not least in relation to originality and its given relationship to materials and time.

For the two sculptural works in the exhibition, Oliver Laric had recourse to the formal language of antiquity. The work Reclining Pan shows Pan, a hybrid creature of human being and billy goat, who in Greek mythology is the god of the forest and nature. The original is by the Italian Renaissance sculptor Francesco da Sangallo and dates from 1535. By contrast, Laric’s ​“copy” is distinguished by the aestheticization of the synthetic and an emphasis on the printing process. Some sequences emphasize the materiality of the figure, while others in turn seem glassy or imitate the purity of marble and thus deny materiality. Thanks to this interplay, Pan seems to emerge directly before our eyes; at the same time, however, he seems schematic, homeless, lost in time. The placelessness and timelessness of the figure is further reinforced by the filigreed aluminum base.

Pan is not grounded at all; he is a Dionysian creature whose behavior is dominated by unbridled passion, ecstasy, and lust. Oliver Laric’s sculpture Sleeping Boy, by contrast, offers a very different picture. Very much in the model of ancient formal language, it depicts a youth who, in contrast to Pan, symbolizes a certain formability, openness, and beauty of the spirit. The youth is in a propped position and is deep in sleep. His head is inclined; his body runs downward toward the floor following a delicate line. The youth is of a noble estate and has a good connection to the ground; at the same time, he is lifting himself up but is still in a state of dreaming. The figure radiates great calm and confidence, conveying that youth is the hope for a better future.