Marit Wolters in Conversation with Kari Conte

The following conversation took place across time and geographies. On June 18, 2018, at the Austrian Cultural Forum in New York City, I moderated a discussion between artists Marit Wolters and Luisa Kasalicky. We discussed both of their practices—particularly in relation to the built environment and nontraditional materials—and Marit Wolter’s solo exhibition Everything That Is Solid Dissolves Into Air opened immediately afterwards.

On September 11, 2020, we spoke again online about her work. From my home in Yalikavak and hers in Vienna, we reflected on the exhibition that took place two years earlier. Everything That Is Solid Dissolves Into Air juxtaposed quotidian elements from construction and architecture and reassembled them in novel unpredictable ways. With this approach, the exhibition highlighted universal materials that surround us but are often overlooked. The exhibition’s abstract constellations of concrete and steel were solid and durable, yet, at the same time, the works seemed fragile and about to collapse.

Kari Conte
I am speaking with you now from southwest Turkey, where a lot of construction is happening these days. In my town, building is not allowed in the summer, when many tourists visit. Now that it’s September, the cranes and dump trucks have arrived and suddenly this place that was once peaceful is full of constant transformation. It’s of course less disquieting than my hometown, New York City, where massive construction projects are part of everyday life. However, here I’m even more sensitive to these changes because of the natural environment. And this leads me to Everything That Is Solid Dissolves Into Air, which utilized materials and processes from the chaotic and tough world of construction, and brought them into the white cube, generally a contemplative and serene space. What was your interest in this transference?

Marit Wolters
The white cube is a space that attempts to erase every visual or acoustic distraction. It’s like all your senses are being cleared from the moment you enter a gallery. You enter the space, and you have the possibility to perceive differently, to perceive more intensely, to perceive all stimuli that reach you in depth. I like all the various raw and rough materials from the field of construction. With focused attention, one can start to see the rust on steel beams, sand on the surface of freshly cast concrete, or how tiny pieces of material crumble from assembled sculptures. These are the tiny things that you don’t perceive in the outside world, because your senses are distracted by all the other things that happen around you. You might see everyday things, like materials that are being used in construction sites in a totally new way. You can think new thoughts about the material, for example, about its cultural background. As Franka Hörnschemeyer once put it, “Only a small proportion of the material is matter, the rest is information.”1 Although I’d say that it’s a rather balanced equation: about half is matter and the other half is information.

Kari Conte
Many of the sculptures in the exhibition were made of aerated concrete. You’ve used aerated concrete before in an earlier performance. Also, at the entrance to the exhibition there was a video of the aeration process for the works in this show, of the concrete bubbling. How does this material communicate differently in a static exhibition versus a performance?

Marit Wolters

Seeing the bubbling of the concrete and hearing it rattle drew the visitor’s focus to the process behind the sculptural works, to the idea of transformation. The final sculptures seemed to be static, though the concrete inside was still reacting.

The performance you mentioned was more about the interaction between the material and me; we both did our part. Aerated concrete is vivid and vibrant, it acts and reacts until it gets to the point where it cures and transforms from matter into sculpture. The performance is like a dialogue with the material. First, I start by mixing raw materials and then these materials react with each other. To form a sculpture, I let this interaction repeat until the aerated concrete cures and remains in its current and final shape.

You’re kind of an alchemist, as you transform materials in ways that seem mysterious to the viewer. What is your process of experimentation? I know that you made many objects that weren’t included in the final exhibition. It seems as though your work involves a lot of trial and error, because, as you said, the materials do what they do—with your input, of course—but you’re definitely leaving the outcome open to chance.

Marit Wolters
For this project, keeping the process of creation open was very important. I always have the feeling that my life is quite controlled by outer circumstances and myself. You know, you always try to make things go the way you want them to go. So, for me, it’s like freeing myself from the pressure of always controlling everything and, instead, letting things happen. The alchemists tried to recreate gold; they had a specific goal. I didn’t know exactly what the result of this project was supposed to look like before I started it. There was a framework that I had precisely set up. But then, during the development of the work, I gave space to unpredicted developments and gave agency to the potential of the material. I always tried to find the next good turn, and then, step by step, find my way through the whole process. However, when I see the result of my experimentation, I instantly know if it is a final work or not. If I don’t recognize it as fitting into the framework or meeting my aesthetic vision, I won’t include it in the show.

Kari Conte
There’s a really nice way that you spoke about your process during our discussion, you said that you are “extending the material to find its aesthetic potential” and “selecting the good moments.” So, in a sense, you are also an editor.

Marit Wolters
Yes, in this way I am an editor as an artist.

Kari Conte
What kinds of materials have you mixed with the concrete in past sculptures?

Marit Wolters
I use a lot of construction-related materials. What interests me is how we build our everyday environment and construct our world. I also use a lot of raw materials from the surrounding site of the exhibition—be it sand, soil, or rainwater. My materials have an inherent connection to the location where I find them. In the past, we’ve used materials that surrounded us to build, and nowadays everything is so industrialized that you don’t even know where all the matter surrounding us is from—it might be from Japan, Venezuela or Israel. In my use of local materials, I feel reconnected to my direct environment.

Kari Conte
What you’re doing is building a kind of local vernacular architecture with elements that are mass-produced somewhere else, nowhere near the site of the exhibition. However, because you fabricate the works in your exhibitions on-site with materials that can be sourced easily nearby, you’re kind of relocalizing these very globalized materials.

Marit Wolters
Yes, I think reestablishing this kind of connection is crucial in these times of globalized streams of goods, thoughts, and materials.

Kari Conte
You use manmade, toxic materials in your work, but they have natural forms and textures. For instance, the rebars reminded me of trees, the concrete sculptures had boulder- like shapes and the aerated technique made them appear as though there’s moss or algae covering them. There was clearly a connection in the installation to nature and decay. It seems that you’re getting a lot of inspiration from the natural environment. The works connect to natural forms and textures, and the quality of the work’s materiality is almost like a sped-up decomposition that we would find in the natural world.

Marit Wolters
What I realized when I started my research on aerated concrete and other construction materials and the components that they are made of—like sand and water—is that they come from nature directly. Even today, the source of the materials is nature before they are modified and refined to be used in mass production. It’s fascinating that when you use them and give them some freedom to expand, they often go back to natural- looking shapes. If while working you don’t use the materials for a strong and solid purpose and function, they can also become fragile and delicate.
Kari Conte

You’re not bending and shaping these materials beyond recognition. In fact, in a way, they are doing what they should have originally done.

The exhibition had many striking details such as the different color twine that fastened the steel rebars to each other. These were hidden elements of the exhibition that you only saw by looking closely. The drawings on plastic and the blue painter’s tape on the red rosin floor paper also had a subtle impact. Can you speak about these works?

Marit Wolters
The twine on the rebars originated from a building technique for bamboo scaffolds that is used in Asia. It’s a very simple method, yet it creates a very robust result. I was fascinated by its simplicity: you only need the rebars, the twine and your two hands and then you can build skyscraper-high, flexible structures. It’s very immediate. The big drawings were actually part of the casting process. It’s the foil I used to cast on, and you could see the traces of my working process on it.

Kari Conte
So you put the plastic on the floor and then you cast the sculptures in the gallery on top of it.

Marit Wolters
Yes, and in some places there are marks left. I also made some marks like arrows that are just for me to remember what direction I was spraying to know when the material is drying, and I could interact with it. So it’s kind of a script for myself, the description of what I have to do. I’m noting down during the process—I started here, then I have to go there ...

Kari Conte
Did you decide from the beginning to include these works, or was that a decision you made during the installation?

Marit Wolters
It was part of the making, but then I decided to incorporate it. And then later, the drawings of the blue tape on the red-rosin floor paper became a performative area. The dancer Naïma Mazic and the musician Elias Stemeseder improvised in response to the sculptures and thus activated the installation on another level.

Kari Conte
So it was delineated as a stage. This exhibition was built in the Austrian Cultural Forum’s galleries, do you build most of your projects on-site?

Marit Wolters
Yes, I work on-site quite a lot, as much as possible. The close connection I have with the space fundamentally influences the works that arise. Working on-site, or at least near the exhibition space, is something completely different from working in the studio. New things are possible. Also, the spectator perceives the vicinity of the artworks when seeing a show. They also draw a connection between the place and the artwork, consciously or unconsciously.

Kari Conte
In the exhibition, visitors surely recognized elements from their everyday lives in New York City, especially in architectural details. To continue on this question of site, the Austrian Cultural Forum is a really particular building. How did you think about the history of the building and about showing your work in a cross-national context?

Marit Wolters
I thought about it a lot. I had never been to New York before, and the Austrian Cultural Forum is the cultural representation of the Austrian State in New York City. The show also happened at a time when migration and its roots and impacts on different societies were particularly important issues in Austria as well as the United States. I really wanted to include thoughts and ideas about how these global movements, transformations and connections influence people’s lives.

Kari Conte
You visited different construction sites around the city, and not all of your research was incorporated into the exhibition. As artists, what have you taken from this city, what has found its way into your work?

Marit Wolters 
Being on-site, there are a few things that found their way into the installation. And then, as you just mentioned, I always take note of where I see construction sites throughout the city. To me it’s inspirational seeing how much is happening here, how much is changing constantly. I am really fascinated by the way the walls that surround the construction sites are painted. That inspired the blue wall in the exhibition space. I wanted it to be patched, as if graffiti or tags had to be covered. It has that funny camouflaged look. The presence of architecture here in Manhattan is so strong.

Kari Conte

Your show is well-documented, although even our memories of well-documented exhibitions are always fragmentary. In revisiting the exhibition two years later, are there parts of it that you would approach differently or are there elements that you remember more than others? In other words, what is your memory of the exhibition?

Marit Wolters
A memory for me is an ongoing process. It changes throughout time. Similarly, I see my work in general as an ongoing transformative process. The installation represents one specific moment in time. Single pieces of the setup or ideas that guided me through the making might reappear in future exhibitions, creating a completely new whole. You can see the transformation and the labor from work to work. That’s the feeling that I get when I think of the installation: things are to be moved, changed, and activated.

Kari Conte
That’s a nice way of putting it, that you endeavor to make the labor of the show visible.

Kari Conte is a curator and writer focused on global contemporary art. She was director of programs and exhibitions at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York from 2010-20, where she currently serves as senior advisor. Additionally, she is residency curator for Kai Art Center in Tallinn, advisor for the 2021 Helsinki Biennale and co-founder of Rethinking Residencies. She has curated more than 40 exhibitions and published numerous books and catalogs. In 2021, she is a Fulbright Scholar in Istanbul.