Over a career spanning five decades, German sculptor Inge Mahn (1943–2023) consciously alienated the commonplace, sensibly manipulating everyday motifs to unlock a range of incongruous possibilities. Working predominantly with white plaster, the artist estranged objects through raw modelling, re-contextualisation, subtle subtractions and additions, creating a universe of unimagined possibilities.
Throughout Mahn’s practice, discrete sculptural elements and installations become activated by independent structures. Purposely ignoring the notion of the self-standing work of art, the artist created works that would interact with broader architectural, historical and socio-political contexts, often formulating responses to specific environments. Foregoing the ready-made principle and the traditional concept of architectural and monumental sculpture, the works testify to Mahn's career-long democratic intentions – often time-based or kinetic, they trigger one’s memories to comment on a range of issues such as authority, power and individuality.
‘Inge Mahn’s sculptures are not created in isolation, but evolve within their specific spatial and situational contexts. They are autonomous only in part, since they react to preexisting architectonic and social structures, assume a stance that corresponds to them, advance objections, stir up our ideas about objects, spaces and rules. This body of work is an ongoing violation of the rules, it provides the impetus for a process of rethinking, reinterpretation, rebuilding. Outwardly this is manifested in the constant white of the works: here everything is being continually reshaped, remodeled, transformed.’
S. von Wiese, Construction Sites. On the sculptural œuvre of Inge Mahn, in Inge Mahn. Baustellen/Construction Sites, Wienand Verlag, 2011
