‘Passageway’ concerned with the concurrence of the material and the immaterial.

Mumbai-based Chemould Prescott Road - in association with Galerie Mirchandani + Steinruecke, IFA, and the Goethe Institut Mumbai - presents passageway, the first solo of internationally renowned German artist Wolfgang Laib in India.

Several iconic, almost mythic, identities define Laib: his training to be a doctor, his hermetic living and working practices, and his serious study of Eastern and pre–Modern religions including Buddhism, Jainism, and medieval Christianity.

Born 1950 in Metzingen, Germany, Wolfgang Laib studied Medicine at the University of Tuebingen, before choosing to become an artist. His work has been exhibited extensively at leading galleries and museums worldwide. A solo exhibition is scheduled for 2013 at the MoMA in New York. Wolfgang Laib lives in Biberach an der Riss, Germany.

The exhibition includes several important works, including his monumental beeswax boats which bear the title of the exhibition and the minimalist black sculpture titled ‘Stairs’. All his works, says Laib, are concerned with the concurrence of the material and the immaterial. His forms and his artistic process are extreme in their concentrated quietude.

The artist has been quoted as saying: “I am not afraid of beauty, unlike most artists today. The pollen, the milk, the beeswax, they have a beauty that is incredible, that is beyond the imagination, something which you cannot believe is a reality–and it is the most real. I could not make it myself, I could not create it myself, but I can participate in it. Trying to create it yourself is only a tragedy, participating in it is a big chance.”

His work – although it concentrates on a few select materials which are sourced from nature such as rice, pollen, milk and beeswax – is not about naturalism. It is about the material itself, about the intense experience of the material in a neutral environment. The intensity of the artist’s materials not only has to do with their color and substance, but also with their intrinsic quality as a source of vital energy. The Milkstone is one of the seminal works that establish the tone of his practice.