School of Flowers - Come Let Us Smile a Little Space/Upon Fond Nature's Morbid Grace

Sebastian Hammwöhner, Dani Jakob and Gabriel Vormstein (b 1974/1973/1974, live and work in Berlin), in addition to their own artistic activity, have been creating cooperative works for the last few years, in which they mask out their own individual authorship in favor of the collective comprehensive piece of art. They are assemblies of individual sculptural objects comprised mainly of found, ‹poor› materials. Irrespective of the media hierarchies of contemporary art, they transform natural elements (such as branches and hay) and remnants of our civilization (such as bricks, glass splinters, books and newspapers) into art. I cannot forward, or rewind, this state of being, this aged resign – let the wind catch a rainbow on fire…, is the title of their work displayed in Glarus: strangely symbolic objects (Vanitas symbols of our time?), conjoining on an oversized tabletop in an atmospherically complete composition. Both the title and the work itself indicate the intensive concern of the three artists with historical, literary and artistic sources, but especially with the mind-set of the Romantic period. It is not astounding, therefore, to hear that they consider their works to be allegories that could be encountered in Albrecht Dürer, Hieronymus Bosch or Caspar David Friedrich. Even if the sense of these allegories remains tenuous – the emotional, magic potential of Hammwöhner, Jakob and Vormstein’s works is clearly noticeable.