Untitled Relief III

The work of Oliver Laric converts qualities of the digital age, such as reproduction, limitless variability, and instant distribution into the physical realm. His 3D scanned sculptures challenge our understanding of art and conventional modes of arts institutionalization, including the complex legal ambiguities of copyright and rights of use. His effort to make art that is traditionally locked in a museum, accessible to an increasingly digital society, regardless of social, geographical or cultural boundaries, on the one hand, challenges traditional modes of art institutionalism, while on the other, democratizes art, by stripping it of constrains to private ownership.

Laric’s series of Untitled wall reliefs builds on the materialization of the artist’s extensive archive of 3D scans. It appropriates elements – in this case, flattened gestures, from various scans of neo-classical sculptures. The fragmented nature of these reliefs’ points to the destiny of isolation and decontextualization of virtual data, which circulates the web. Made of a mix of aluminum powder and resin, these works become in themselves, examples of variation and abstraction, and materialization of a so-called digital after-life.