Michael Sailstorfer

BIOGRAPHy

Born in Velden, Germany. Lives and works in Berlin, Germany.

Born in 1979 in Velden, Germany, Michael Sailstorfer lives and works in Berlin. He has a bachelor’s in fine arts from the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich, and a master’s from Goldsmiths College in London, England. He has taken part in several exhibitions internationally, including at the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona, Spain, the Sydney Biennale in Australia, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Oslo, Norway.

Public Art

Gare Fluviale de Lévis

Antiherbst, 2015, video.

Recorded over a period of eight weeks, this video appears to depict changing seasons. Strangely, however, no leaves are shed and the tree seems to revive on its own, but in a surreal shade jarring with the surrounding landscape. Sailstorfer orchestrated the work of special effects professionals who helped create the illusion of seasons, as one by one, leaves were painted then reattached to the branches. The goal of the project was to artificially reverse a natural process through human interference.

Presented in collaboration with Regart, centre d’artistes en art actuel.
Manif d’art would like to thank the Société des Traversiers du Québec.
Manif d’art and the artist would like to thank Galerie Perrotin.

Solo exhibition

REGART, CENTRE D’ARTISTES EN ART ACTUEL

Tränen, 2015, video.

Tränen is the recording of a performance produced in Bavaria that shows a rustic house being destroyed in slow motion by enormous, caricatured raindrops. A cartoon effect is produced by the steel-cast wrecking balls, moulded and coloured to resemble huge drops of water, which are released from cranes. The formal dissonance between the expected lightness of a rain shower and the obliterating heaviness of its disproportionate likeness creates surprise, and the spectacular collapse of the home reduced to dusty rubble evokes simultaneously the cycles of artistic creation and natural regeneration.

Lips, 2022, in-situ installation.

With Lips, Sailstorfer magnifies the romantic haze so many have felt when bewitched by the lips of a Hollywood starlet or a passionate lover. This work is a site-specific installation presented in the windows of Le Regart. The crimson light becomes an intangible work of art, as lipstick transmutes from a solid state into an immersive experience.

 

Discover the artist

Michael Sailstorfer
Allemagne, Berlin