STUTTGART.- The roar of a construction site and a pile of old jeans don't typically inspire a trip to an art gallery. But for Stuttgart-based artist Clemens Schneider, they are the very soul of his work. The exhibition at the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, "Excess. Sounding Paper by Clemens Schneider," which opened on International Museum Day, invites visitors to see, hear, and feel the creative potential of what our society discards.

The exhibition centers on Schneider's large-scale installation, Überfluss ("Excess"). Acquired by the Staatsgalerie in 2023, the piece is the culmination of the artist’s unique journey. After training as a stone sculptor and painter, Schneider found his true calling in the humble material of paper. Unable to find the specialized paper he needed, he turned to an old craft, making his own rag paper from recycled jeans and T-shirts with custom-built tools.

But Schneider didn't stop there. He wanted his paper to do more than just be seen. He embedded contact microphones into the massive sheets, transforming the paper itself into a speaker. The result is an immersive installation where the meditative, musical sounds of a construction machine—captured and repurposed by the artist—are played back through the very artwork created from our waste.

Curated by Karin Eisenkrein, the exhibition transforms the museum's Graphic Art Cabinet into a space for dialogue. It's a powerful statement on consumerism and waste, challenging us to look past the trash and noise of modern life to find a creative, even beautiful, potential for recycling. Instead of a moral lecture, Schneider offers an invitation: to experience excess not as a burden, but as a source of artistic inspiration.