Maze 19

Michael Sailstorfer’s works, often referred to as expanded sculptures, are interested in concepts like transformation, space, movement, and inertia. “Maze 19” is part of his “Maze” series, comprised of large-scale canvasses that include maze puzzles, solved without much precision. Though the artist usually creates three-dimensional objects, with the “Maze” series, he reflects his artistic practice back on a two-dimensional, flat representation of space. He finds images of mazes on the Internet and applies them onto the surfaces of specially prepared canvasses coated with newspaper clippings, ink, acrylic, or iron and copper. With swift gestural strokes, the artist marks his journey into the puzzle with spray paint, allowing the viewers to witness the process of an artwork’s creation, from conception to realisation, incorporating its progressions, regressions, failures, detours, and successes. Associated with amusement and spirituality over the course of history, the maze has been seen as a symbol of seeking self, the loss of one’s bearings, and the repetition of individual choice. Imprinted on newspaper clippings that conjure up notions of contemporaneity, global issues, political controversies, and environmental catastrophes, the maze in “Maze 19” can also be interpreted as a reflection on the difficulty of finding direction in one’s life in the present.