Reaktor

Focusing on the most recent body of work by Michael Sailstorfer, this book examines how his art responds to space and to the particular site in which it appears. Works such as Study for Breathing House, where an explosion makes a house seem to contract and swell in a way that is barely perceptible, and Endless column, which sends a beam of light up through an opening in the ceiling, show him using light, scent, energy and sound as materials for sculptural interventions. Andy Warhol, a perfume dispenser, follows the same logic.

Sailstorfer's output mixes absurdity, sharp poetic gestures and a wistful sense of humor. The book places it alongside ideas about how space is conceived, drawing on the philosopher Franz Xaver Baier. Baier's notions of invisible, shifting and existential space frame the work, with time and distance treated as the terms through which spatial understanding keeps growing.

The volume gathers an essay by art critic Jennifer Allen, a fictional text by author Ingo Niermann, a contribution by singer, author and director Schorsch Kamerun, excerpts from Baier's book Der Raum, and an interview conducted by curator Neville Wakefield. It also notes Sailstorfer's upcoming solo shows at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt am Main and at P.S.1 in New York.