Christoph WeberFacing the Technosphere

Exhibition

Artist TalkChristoph Weber in conversation with Florian Langhammer

Wed, 30 Aug 2023

16:30

Domgasse 6

1010 Vienna

8 Jul – 2 Sept 2023

read inGerman

Facing the Technosphere

How can one put an economic system and its consequences for the planet and for the global climate into artistic form? How can something be represented that, according to cultural studies scholar Eva Horn, is not an event but a set of increased probabilities for certain scenarios? [1]

In order to represent what eludes attempts to picture or imagine it, Christoph Weber employs materials from three different spheres that overlap in the world of our lived experience: concrete as the global building material that shapes the human-made technosphere; fossil rock as the material of the earth’s crust, the so-called lithosphere; and various mixtures of beeswax as a material representation of the biosphere. For his fourth solo exhibition, Weber has created a dense system of references to the horizons of meaning inscribed within these materials. On display are two groups of current works, the first of which symbolizes the direct confrontation of the three spheres, while the second attempts to feel its way toward the calculation of complex transformations.

A massive, floor-standing concrete slab splits under its own weight along the bearing edge of a piece of limestone, the fossil material whose stored CO2 is released in large quantities during the production of cement. Dark brown slabs on the wall cast from wood tar, beeswax, tree resin, and paraffin display the impressions left by a jagged fragment of a piece of concrete taken from a landfill. Finally, the latter presses into a geometric block, deforming it and almost causing it to burst. The forms of these sculptures result from the weight and malleability of the various materials. In each case, the encounter of the fragments with technically produced molded parts freezes a moment of direct confrontation between the two spheres; fractures, breaches, and contusions speak—to borrow the language of Achill Mbembe—of the brutality of anthropogenic processes. [2]

The transfer of a form also takes center stage in the second group of works, albeit within a more multilayered process. Christoph Weber uses cast portions of the surfaces of concrete infrastructures — a Viennese oil tank bunker and an Autobahn bridge — to generate representations in three different media. Thus, the cast surface becomes a photographic contact print of the translucent cast material, as well as a cast-iron relief stamp that impresses a negative form into beeswax. In complex transformative processes, sections of the surfaces of preexisting structures are turned into emblems of the technosphere’s imprints on the biosphere.

Confrontations, ruptures, and resistances are the defining aspects of the artist’s exhibited works. He succeeds in finely balancing the play of physical forces in order to challenge and invite us to imagine what cannot actually be represented or depicted.

[1] Eva Horn, The Future as Catastrophe: Imagining Disaster in the Modern Age, trans. Valentine Pakis (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018).

[2] Achille Mbembe, Brutalisme (Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 2020).

Featured Works

Christoph Weber

Touch Fragments (Autobahnstütze Knoten Inzersdorf)

left part: Transfer Mark, 2023
beeswax; unique
56,5 x 66 x 7,5 cm (22 1/4 x 26 x 3 in.)

middle part: Transfer Die, 2023
cast iron, eye bolts, lifting chains; unique
cast iron 57 x 46,5 x 7 cm (22 x 18 x 2 3/4 in.)
height 310 cm (122 in.)

right part: Contact Print, 2023
Contact Print (photographic exposure of mould material), Silver Gelatine Print; ed. 4+1AP
44,5 x 55,5 cm (17 1/2 x 21 7/8 in.)
framed 48 x 59,5 cm (18 7/8 x 23 1/2 in.), 2023

6 Zoom Views

PDF

Christoph Weber

Touch Fragments (Salzgitter-Bunker, Ölindustrie, Lobau)

left part: Contact Print, 2023
Contact Print (photographic exposure of mould material), Silver Gelatine Print; ed. 4+1AP
44,5 x 55,5 cm (17 1/2 x 21 7/8 in.)
framed 48 x 59,5 cm (18 7/8 x 23 1/2 in.)

middle part: Transfer Die, 2023
cast iron, eye bolts, round slings, steel rack; unique
90 x 56 x 70 cm (35 x 22 x 27 in.)
cast iron 46,5 x 57 x 7 cm (18 x 22 x 2 3/4 in.)

right part: Transfer Mark, 2023
beeswax; unique
56,5 x 64 x 7,5 cm (22 1/4 x 25 x 3 in.), 2023

7 Zoom Views

PDF

Christoph Weber

Fossil Continuum, 2023

limestone (Mannersdorf), concrete; unique

2 parts, total 53 x 46 x 68 cm (20 7/8 x 18 x 26 3/4 in.)

3 Zoom Views

PDF

Christoph Weber

Fossil Continuum, 2023

limestone (Mannersdorf), concrete; unique

2 parts, total 47 x 40 x 46 cm (18 1/2 x 15 3/4 x 18 in.)

3 Zoom Views

PDF

Christoph Weber

Bind, 2023

concrete from a landfill, wood tar, beeswax, colophony, paraffin wax; unique

50 x 39 x 34 cm (19 1/2 x 15 3/8 x 13 3/8 in.)

2 Zoom Views

PDF

Christoph Weber

Mark, 2023

traces of concrete from a landfill, wood tar, beeswax, colophony, paraffin wax, acrylic glass; unique

32 x 39 x 8 cm (12 5/8 x 15 3/8 x 3 1/8 in.), framed 38 x 49 x 11,5 cm (15 x 19 1/4 x 4 1/2 in.)

2 Zoom Views

PDF

Christoph Weber

Mark, 2023

traces of concrete from a landfill, wood tar, beeswax, colophony, paraffin wax, acrylic glass; unique

29 x 39 x 8 cm (11 3/8 x 15 3/8 x 3 1/8 in.), framed 38 x 49 x 11,5 cm (15 x 19 1/4 x 3 1/8 in.)

2 Zoom Views

PDF

Christoph Weber

Chase #03, 2023

chase, traces of concrete from a landfill, wood tar, beeswax, colophony, paraffin wax, text made with strike letters; unique

40 x 31 x 2,5 cm (15 3/4 x 12 x 1 in.)

2 Zoom Views

PDF

Christoph Weber

Chase #02, 2023

chase, lead type Antiqua 16p, styrofoam with inkjet printing, Acrystal; unique

40 x 31 x 2,5 cm (15 3/4 x 12 x 1 in.)

2 Zoom Views

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Christoph Weber

Chase #01, 2023

chase, beeswax; unique

40 x 31 x 2,5 cm (15 3/4 x 12 x 1 in.)

2 Zoom Views

PDF

CHRISTOPH WEBER

Contact Print

Contact Print (photographic exposure of mould material)
Silver Gelatine Print; ed. 4+1AP
44,5 x 55,5 cm (17 1/2 x 21 7/8 in.)
framed 48 x 59,5 cm (18 7/8 x 23 1/2 in.), 2023

Zoom View

PDF