PRESENTATION: Oscar Tuazon-What We Need

The sculptor Oscar Tuazon works with natural and industrial materials to create inventive objects, structures, and installations that can be used, occupied, or otherwise engaged by viewers. With a strong interest in and influence from architecture and minimalism, Tuazon turns both disciplines on their heads as he mangles, twists, combines, and connects steel, glass, and concrete as well as two-by-fours, tree trunks, and found objects.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Kunsthalle Bielefeld Archive

Oscar Tuazon produces objects and environments that draw out humanity’s relationship to buildings, interior and exterior spaces, and other objects and structures. Tuazon’s expansive constructions navigate the realms between sculpture and architecture. They occupy exhibition spaces, create new areas for encounters, dialogues, and interactions with the audience, and raise fundamental questions about our existential needs. The comprehensive retrospective exhibition “What We Need” at the Kunsthalle Bielefeld is Oscar Tuazon’s first solo museum exhibition in Germany in almost a decade. The exhibition provides an overview of his work over the past 20 years, rooted in minimalism, conceptual art, 20th-century architectural history, and DIY techniques. The exhibition is accompanied and connected with works from the Kunsthalle Bielefeld’s collection. More than 40 works are on display, with a focus on his large-scale, walkable architectural installations, which he sees as stages for social interaction. Referencing the visual language of American artists like Sol LeWitt and Donald Judd, he not only connects lines of tradition between art and architecture but also links art with the collective. Guided by intuitive decisions and a process-oriented approach, Tuazon’s works have a close relationship with the surrounding social and physical space, as well as with the audience, which becomes an active part of many works. Tuazon views sculpture as a stage and platform to initiate and promote creative and societal activities. Audience participation and the intertwining of global issues with local societal challenges are fundamental aspects of his art. The exhibition “What We Need” raises fundamental questions: What are our existential needs? And what role does art and culture play in this context? For the exhibition in Bielefeld, the artist realizes the expansive installations “Building” (2023), “Cedar Spring Water School” (2023), and “Great Lakes Water School” (2023), which simultaneously serve as sculpture, meeting point, open lecture hall, and discussion space. They create a place for encounters and invite reflection and discussion on socially relevant topics such as sustainability, energy and environmental policies, architecture, urban planning, and shaping the future. In doing so, works from the collection of the Kunsthalle Bielefeld are incorporated and juxtaposed to unfold new narratives from history. Drawing from Tuazon’s inquiries into physical and societal spaces, our existential needs, and our relationship with nature, the exhibition establishes both content and formal connections to the collection, ranging from artists like Teresa Burga, Erich Heckel, and Ellsworth Kelly to Charlotte Posenenske and Günther Uecker.

Photo: Oscar Tuazon, Water School, 2023, Installation view, Bergen Kunsthall. Photo: Thor Brødreskift

Info: Curators Benedikt Fahrnschon & Christina Végh, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Artur-Ladebeck-Straße 5, Bielefeld, Germany, Duration: 19/8-12/11/2023, Days & Hours: Tue, Thu-Fri & Sun 11:00-18:00, Wed 11:00-21:00, Sat 10:00-18:00, https://kunsthalle-bielefeld.de/