From Dec. 10 to March 5, 2006, the Auckland Art Gallery in Auckland, New Zealand will feature an exhibition of the work of Wolfgang Laib. The German artist likes to retreat from worldly affairs, limiting his dealings solely to nature. Nature is the point of departure for his work, and he seeks the motifs for his art from the natural world, creating installations using pollen, milk, beeswax, marble, rice, and sealing wax. He lives and works embedded in the seasons: gathering materials outdoors when the dandelions, hazelnut, and pines are blooming and in winter working in his studio where he polishes marble for his milk stones.
 
A meticulous and patient creator, Laib carefully crafts his renowned ziggurat sculptures through melding honey wax slabs into powerful structures. His 'pollen pieces' can take 2-3 hours to create, with the pollen itself having taken 6 months to collect. He commences at the centre of an imagined square and quietly taps at the pollen from its muslin sieve, from where it drifts to the ground slowly forming a luminous and fragrant square.
 
In another room of the exhibition, viewers can see delicate offerings of rice and golden pollen from hazelnut that are placed beside wax and marble houses. Wolfgang Laib's work is both beautiful and contemplative to behold.

Laib has spoken about the 'cement desert' in which we live, disconnected from nature. To stand before one of his pollen pieces is to reconnect and have your senses renewed. He explains, 'I wanted to have this very intense, concentrated experience. So, the meadow with flowers where I collect the pollen is something very different from how you see it here, a real concentrated experience without distractions, nothing else.'

Laib is a renowned international artist who has been exhibiting since the mid 1970s. He has had solo exhibitions at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, inWashington D.C.; Pompidou Centre in Paris; and LA MOCA alongside numerous other shows at galleries throughout Europe, North America, Asia and Australia. This will be the first opportunity for a New Zealand audience to view works by this major artist.

Images Courtesy of The Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand. Images (top to bottom): Collection ifa Stuttgart; Private Collection; Collection of ifa, Stuttgart.