Wolfgang Laib’s You will go somewhere else evokes the idea of a spacious setting, a kind of ‘spiritual precinct.’ It consists of a fleet of ships made of beeswax on a wood scaffolding. The artist’s working process demonstrates a kind of purity and calm concentration, reflected likewise in the simplicity of his materials. Characterized less by innovation or formal development than by strict continuity, the series of repeated processes, collecting and utilizing the same basic essentials – natural substances such as milk, pollen, rice, beeswax, and marble – enhance awareness of the transience of phenomena while encouraging the mental quest for serenity and the transcendental. Laib’s formal vocabulary, which tends towards abstraction, is based on geometrical figures and forms such as the rectangle, circle, pyramid, cone, and the stylized, archetypal motifs of house, mountain, boat or stairs. The form of the beeswax boats – inaccessible conveyances into another world – extends a spiritual invitation for us to strive, in reflection and contemplation, towards unknown goals.
