Wolfgang Breuer

Wolfgang Breuer’s practice considers industrial design and what it discloses about its environment. His exhibitions frequently refer to outdoor situations, incorporating objects that are usually found fixed to street pavements such as bus shelters, recycling bins, benches and fences. Employed as materials for large-scale mixed media compositions, Breuer’s painterly attention to the character of surface, detail, colour and form enacts an aesthetic analysis that distances these objects from their primary function and advances ideas about the conditions that determine their design and misappropriation.

Breuer’s interventions are informed by general principles about the organization of space and colour in graphic design and fine art. His work is situated within a circuit of production and interpretation, often employing materials to act simultaneously as components for abstract assemblage and articles selected for formal deconstruction. Given this treatment, found elements with associations of control can be transformed by simple modifications and become the basis for decorative experiments. Breuer’s work considers the psychological operation of visual information and the inherent decisions and possibilities it presents.

Cubitt has commissioned Breuer to develop a series of new sculptures that will be displayed within what he refers to as a ‘stained glass window’ installation formed of steel security shutters.

Wolfgang Breuer was born in Augsburg in 1966 and studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. Previous exhibitions in London include a solo presentation at Between Bridges (2006). More recently, he has had solo exhibitions at Neue Alte Brücke in Frankfurt (2008) and KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2009). Breuer lives and works in Berlin.

Supported by Arts Council England, the Elephant Trust, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and the Goethe Institut.