Martin Kargruber: From the Inside Out. Sculptures in Wood 2014-2024

Martin Kargruber forms his delicate sculptural objects from a single piece of dense wood, each executed down to the finest detail. He uses traditional techniques, reinterpreting them in extraordinary ways, thus transforming the rigidity of the wood into what looks like gentle movement. The traces of workmanship – likewise the naturalness and organic quality of the material – themselves become a visually defining part of the design.

Kargruber’s works reference his environment; they reveal yet at the same time shroud it in mystery. Clumps of reeds or haystacks sway as if by magic. The house facades have no doors, only impervious window frames that are a mere suggestion, lightly accentuated in pencil. The unfamiliar, the secluded, and the often nigh-on inaccessible act as a metaphor to a world that is not immediately revealed, even when its objects lay open before our eyes.

Each ensemble and arrangement of objects – house, tree, hay bale, shed – reveals just as much as is necessary to allow the viewer to embark on their own story. This way the artist provides visual stimulus for a way of seeing that is not just directed at the phenomenon of what is real but also appeals to our imagination. We ourselves are motivated not only to search for meaning but also to think further about these sculptural images.

At the same time, Kargruber reflects on his own origins and identity, his place and status in the world. His objects, above all the house sculptures, meanwhile act as isolated set pieces of a slowly disappearing rural environment that has been encroached on by monstrous functional architecture such as a giant transmitter mast or a nuclear power station. Even the fields and meadows tested to human intervention in the landscape and to the transformation of nature brought about by technology.
This new monograph provides a first insight into the sculptor’s extraordinary oeuvre in full-size and detailed views of the objects. An essay by Thomas Elsen expertly introduces an artist’s perspective that is abstract, poetic and intensely evocative.