Untitled 1996

Curator: Wolfgang Laib created this “Untitled” resin sculpture in 1996. It's an evocative example of his minimalist, often site-specific works. Editor: First blush? It makes me think of bleached coral, or maybe even solidified custard—incredibly still and silent. Like something from a dream you can almost touch. Curator: That immediate sense of tactility is essential. Laib’s employment of resin, though industrial, encourages a haptic reading, drawing attention to its formal arrangement, its smooth but not quite flawless surface. Editor: Yes! Flaws and all! I love how it's so plainly just stairs… but not. It promises access but delivers nothing tangible. It's absurd. It's almost comically monumental in its simplicity. Curator: The paradoxical nature is intended, I think. Laib reduces the staircase to its absolute geometric form, while the color—this off-white hue— further underscores a sense of the absolute, a form purged of external reference. It begs the question, what are stairs if not for their pure form, their suggestion of ascending toward somewhere? Editor: Right, this somewhere is deliberately left undefined. It invites contemplation, that's for sure. I imagine interacting with this in person: touching it, getting a different perspective from each step, each level, really feeling the texture and coolness of the resin. Curator: It serves as a profound meditation on form and absence. It’s not necessarily about what the stairs lead to, but the idea of ascension and progression itself, stripped bare and presented as an object of contemplation. Editor: You know, in a way, this thing’s whispering about time. How the steps are supposed to bring us to the future but end up getting us lost instead? Beautiful. Curator: Precisely. The sculpture distills time, potential, and aspiration into a deceptively simple aesthetic form. Editor: And here I thought it just looked like petrified brie cheese. Okay, Wolfgang, you got me! Curator: It’s a fine line Laib treads, a tension between material presence and transcendental suggestion. Editor: A truly thought-provoking piece; I’ll be mulling over these sterile stairs long after we leave this gallery.