COLOGNE.- Oscar Tuazon’s (b. 1975 in Seattle) expansive constructions engage with both exterior and interior spaces; they enter into a dialogue with existing architecture, burst its structures, and create new spaces—visible as well as invisible. His work focuses on, among other things, the subject of physical labor and the developmental process involved in an artwork. This is immediately apparent in his pieces that range between sculpture and architecture, as well as in his choice of materials— oftentimes wood, metal, stone, and concrete.

Tuazon’s works combine concepts of Land Art with the principles of Minimalism and post-Minimalism and as such link the conception of something abstract with an actual construction; this is marked by extreme physical challenges in the installation phase as well as by continually shifting spatial conditions.

The presentation of Oscar Tuazon’s work in the Museum Ludwig is not being shown in the exhibition spaces but, rather, extends throughout the museum’s entire main staircase. On all four levels, visitors will encounter architectural components of a private residence; on the basement level the lower staircase landing is extended into a type of garage door, an intervention that was realized for the new presentation of the collection Not Yet Titled and now announces the current exhibition. The architectural fragments distributed throughout the staircase represent a counterargument to the existing museum architecture: private and public, institutional space are contrasted with one another and engage in a direct dialogue.

As part of his artistic practice Tuazon investigates the history of art since the late 1960s. The content of his art builds on the work of artists such as Carl Andre, Bruce Nauman, Robert Smithson, and Gordon Matta-Clark, and newly situates the discourse on space, material, and labor in contemporary art.

Beginning in 2007 Oscar Tuazon lived and worked in Paris, where he co-founded the artist collective-run gallery castillo/corrales. In 2013 Tuazon moved to Los Angeles. He studied at the Cooper Union School of Art and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York. In 2011 Tuazon was represented at the fifty-fourth Venice Biennale. In 2013 his work was featured in solo exhibitions at the Schinkel Pavillion in Berlin and at the Boijmans van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.

On the occasion of the exhibition an artist book is being published by DoPe Press on June, 21 with texts Anna Brohm, Philipp Kaiser, Miwon Kwon, Nico Machida, and Antek Walczak.

Exhibition curators: Philipp Kaiser and Anna Brohm