Galleries in Paris

« Etui », Thomas Grïnfeld, solo show.

Thomas Grünfeld’s appreciation for objects is not merely formal but also relates to a specific functionality. Often using items of furniture as a starting point, he refers to conventional shapes and materials (related to homes and practices of interior design or decoration) and their corresponding usage, also implying the emotional and expressive (and representative) connotations found in a particular aesthetics or design. On a level of artistic appropriation and abstraction, he then recombines these characteristic properties whilst retaining a remote resemblance, a recollection of an original form, from which this new hybrid is derived. Grünfelds ambiguous sculptures constantly tease their beholder, questioning expectations and experiences, so that one is suspended in a state of imbalance between identification and alienation. In his deconstruction of familiar surroundings, Grünfeld follows a reductive approach, breaking down the inventory to simple basic forms and materials, which he cites and at the same time de- and recontextualizes.