Pablo Ehmer

„0><0” Mar 24, 2023 - Apr 28, 2023

The practice of Pablo Ehmer focuses on sculpture and installation. Commenting on formal traditions within the media, Pablo’s work often hints at processes of collecting, gathering and the time-based relation of their material towards the practice of exhibiting.

Materially experimenting with things that are intuitively formable or in itself evolving and growing, Pablo is interested in the different stages that his source material lives through before it reaches its final form. Turning towards a narrative quality that is inherent to found objects, the artist advances them into formal inquiries that repeatedly address the non-linear passing of time. Using the significant metaphoric image of an hourglass as a core inspiration for recent sculptural work, his exhibition at OoO vividly represents his inclination for depicting traces of everyday life.

In the shape of things usually overseen, forgotten or even thrown away by the majority of the Viennese public, the sculptures in 0><0 allude to packaging material of various kinds. Disidentified cake boxes contrast a sculpture made from upcycled and recontextualized advertising magazines that so often grace local subway floors. Things initially made to hold goods as well as information are stripped of their previous function. Aesthetically altered to serve new purposes within Ehmer’s realm of commentary, the installation could also be seen as an abstract cityscape reminiscent of movements long past.

The reorganized and hardened material displayed within the wall works become softened again by a more hidden intervention behind the doors of my adjacent flat. To be seen more as a sketch or relic of previous works this plant drowning in a coffee mug has a warm presence to it. Rebelliously exceeding its restraining pot, it playfully reverses the logic displayed in its neighbouring works. Instead of being rigidified prior to the exhibition, like the works in front were, it will grow taller in its assigned position. Following this trope that from waste evolves new, Pablo steadily fosters a continuous allegory to the natural.