Pia Stadtbäumer

Psychoaktiv

Pionierin der Feldversuche mit Körpern und Raumbezügen

Pia Stadtbäumer (b. Münster, 1959; lives and works in Düsseldorf) is a leading exponent of the rediscovery of the human figure in sculpture. Like fellow artists such as Katharina Fritsch, Paul McCarthy, Thomas Schütte, and Kiki Smith, she rose to renown in the 1980s with now-canonical works that pursued a probing examination and exposition of the representation of the body in a rapidly changing contemporary world. In Stadtbäumer’s early oeuvre, the focus is on the engagement with bodies in sculptures and installations—the proportions, demeanor, and modelling of the protagonists of her compositions are spare, restricted to the traditional role models of man, woman, and child. Anonymous and exchangeable, they become active protagonists in the exhibition space only by virtue of their unconventional gestures. Over the years, the artist has allowed other irritations to inform her sculptures, intervening into the physicality of her figures: outsize hanging arms, fragile hermaphrodites standing before the viewer, periwigs and attires molded after models from the Rococo. Defying the apocalyptic discourse of the post-human, Stadtbäumer’s sculptural gestures evince organically unfolding and inventive variations on the nature of man.

The indispensable monograph offers a synopsis of three decades in Stadtbäumer’s career (1989–2019) and illustrates her equally conceptual and intuitive approach. With a survey of her oeuvre by Julian Heynen and essays by Prof. Beate Söntgen and Ariadne von Schirach.