Otis Laubert (b. 1946) is a seminal figure in the founding generation of conceptual art in Central and Eastern Europe, whose work is characterised by free associations, wordplay and humour. His main artistic medium is the found object. In his objects, assemblages and collages, he attributes a new aesthetic or semantic value to these banal objects, creating a unique visual poetry.
Laubert has been active in the underground art scene since 1965 and for more than twenty years has shown his work almost exclusively in informal spaces. After 1989 he began to exhibit publicly in galleries at home and abroad, and immediately after the fall of the Iron Curtain he was invited to major exhibitions such as the 1990 Berlin “Metropolis” world exhibition.
Knoll Gallery presented a solo exhibition of his work in Budapest in 1991, and in 2001 his work was shown at the Ludwig Museum as part of the A-R Group. The name of the group comes from the French word “Avance – Retard”, which on the back of the clocks are the letter “A-R”, indicating the “hurry-late” position setting, i.e. the accuracy of the clocks. Its members have created structures based on the material or symbolic transformation of an everyday phenomenon.
Our exhibition presents a selection of the Slovak artist’s work, including several defining works such as the installation Fluidum and series such as Collections, Flags, Cartography and Mail art, as well as some important individual works.