SELECTION OF WORKS (2014 – 2023)
(not chronologically ordered)
SELECTION OF EXHIBITIONS & PROJECTS (TO BE UPDATED)
01.
Solo exhibition at Es Baluard Contemporary Art Museum.
Palma, Spain.
Curated by Francesco Giaveri.
Texts by Francesco Giaveri and Carina Bukuts.
Full documentation and info.
“even in a language that is not your own”
2023Solo exhibition at Es Baluard Contemporary Art Museum.
Palma, Spain.
Curated by Francesco Giaveri.
Texts by Francesco Giaveri and Carina Bukuts.
Full documentation and info.
even in a language that is not your own is a project that proposes a path about memory in a series of successive spaces, each used for subtle interventions. This show is not thought either as a sum or a sequence of works, but is conceived as a whole in which to orient oneself.
The items the artist places in each space speak to the viewer in a rather odd way, to draw us into a shared experience. In exploring the exhibition space, we come across small pictures and sculptures, texts and sounds. After distinguishing and discovering, we find ourselves in a kind of common memory, the memory that is passed on orally, perhaps imprecise and certainly incomplete. Yet recognisable.
In ideal terms, it was a question of catapulting the viewer into an oral cavity, where the air emerging from the lungs is articulated to determine speech. An apparently inhospitable, dark place that is however secure, like a safe refuge, with or without a way out. To do this, Ian Waelder creates a path in which silence is followed by histories in the form of comments, almost all trivial, that branch out into a wide range of possibilities and ramifications. They are footnotes to the main text making up this route/exhibition, approached as a work in itself. [Read more]
The items the artist places in each space speak to the viewer in a rather odd way, to draw us into a shared experience. In exploring the exhibition space, we come across small pictures and sculptures, texts and sounds. After distinguishing and discovering, we find ourselves in a kind of common memory, the memory that is passed on orally, perhaps imprecise and certainly incomplete. Yet recognisable.
In ideal terms, it was a question of catapulting the viewer into an oral cavity, where the air emerging from the lungs is articulated to determine speech. An apparently inhospitable, dark place that is however secure, like a safe refuge, with or without a way out. To do this, Ian Waelder creates a path in which silence is followed by histories in the form of comments, almost all trivial, that branch out into a wide range of possibilities and ramifications. They are footnotes to the main text making up this route/exhibition, approached as a work in itself. [Read more]
02.
GROTTO – Städelschule Graduation Exhibition.
Danziger Platz, 12
Frankfurt am Main, DE
Text by the artist.
Full documentation and info.
“From Time To Time”
2023GROTTO – Städelschule Graduation Exhibition.
Danziger Platz, 12
Frankfurt am Main, DE
Text by the artist.
Full documentation and info.
(...) The work displayed for my graduation first shows a modification of the space. And as the viewer enters, they hear someone is whistling (...) [Read more]
03.
“mezzo staccato
2023
Solo exhibition at Galerie Rolando Anselmi.
Rome, Italy.
Text by the gallery.
Full documentation and info.
“mezzo staccato
(romantic gestures)”
2023Solo exhibition at Galerie Rolando Anselmi.
Rome, Italy.
Text by the gallery.
Full documentation and info.
(...) The abstraction of gestures and the introduction of stains complicate the understanding of the scene, just as sometimes memories arrive barely blurred and the result of a troubled memory. The silver gelatin print 1993 - (Fly on hand) #02 depicts a plant received by Ian Waelder's parents on the day of his birth and whose growth the artist records each time he is back at their home in Spain. Like the imperceptible fly resting on the leaf, the visitor almost surreptitiously witnesses Ian Waelder's personal story and the symbolic telling of a story taking shape through artistic practice. Towards the end of the exhibition the visitor is forced to walk around Upright (The Pianist diminuendo) to discover a fictional clay nose, that could be the Ian’s, Federico’s or another family member’s, thus fixed at the height of the artist (...) [Read more]
04.
Solo exhibition at ethall gallery.
Barcelona, Spain.
Text by the gallery.
Full documentation and info.
“Is it like today?”
2022Solo exhibition at ethall gallery.
Barcelona, Spain.
Text by the gallery.
Full documentation and info.
Ian Waelder’s practice explores memory and trace by isolating material histories and language in relation to his biography, working through the poetics of the accident and the repurposing of the discarded. The exhibition Is it like today? brings together a series of recent works that focus on the search for the Opel Olympia, a 1930s car that belonged to the family of his paternal grandfather, the pianist Federico (Friedrich) Waelder, and which enabled him to flee Germany during Nazism.
Through the works that compose the exhibition, Waelder has carried out an investigation centred on family genealogy, recent history and the parallels between body and machine. This line of work emerged as the artist's response to moving to Frankfurt in 2017 and realising that he is the first member of his family to re-settle in the German country since his grandfather's exile, residing a mere 30 minutes from the original Opel factory.
The first part of this story began in 2020 after he found a tape containing a piano melody of (...)
[Read more]
Through the works that compose the exhibition, Waelder has carried out an investigation centred on family genealogy, recent history and the parallels between body and machine. This line of work emerged as the artist's response to moving to Frankfurt in 2017 and realising that he is the first member of his family to re-settle in the German country since his grandfather's exile, residing a mere 30 minutes from the original Opel factory.
The first part of this story began in 2020 after he found a tape containing a piano melody of (...)
[Read more]