Who has ever hear of Wolfgang Laib?
Well I did not! Even though I have been a faithful reader of the online newspaper Art Daily, I missed what they wrote in November 2006: --> "wolfgang laib (b. 1950) numbers among those German artists who have been admired and respected over a long period."

Well this week was Wolfgang Laib week for me: on Monday March 11, 2013 I saw his wonderful installation at MoMA. Glowin, shining, mesmerizing from above we observed a square arranged from Hazelnut Pollen. Here Laib is in the tradition of Josef Albers (another German) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Josef_Albers%27s_painting_%27Homage_to_the_Square%27,_1965.jpg
or even Mark Rothko:
http://www.nashvillescene.com/binary/f9bd/1331328564-rothko_untitled.jpg

 On Saturday March 16, I was at the Phillips collection in Washington DC and saw a totally different Laib: THE WAX room:

As THE HILL  reports: The Laib Wax Room... is the first permanent room made of beeswax at any museum in the United States.The room itself is small, measuring 6 by 7 by 10 feet, but its walls and ceiling are covered in pure beeswax.Laib melted 20 blocks of beeswax — totaling 882 pounds — and then applied the warm beeswax to the walls like plaster, smoothing it with an iron and a hot air gun.

“It looks a little bit like an alfresco. And it has a speckled look because there are little pieces of beeswax in it that didn’t melt. The melted beeswax is very yellowy-orange in color and the pieces that are not melted are a little darker, more like honey, so it has a beautiful texture,” Klaus Ottmann - the curator-said.

Ariella and I were instructed by a museum guard to put down all our belongings and enter- two at a time. The room which we could smell from afar felt warm yet at the same time confined. the single lightbulb illuminating the place was disconcerting reminding me of an interrogation room or a solitary confinement cell. Yet, at the same time I was disturbed by the opening where other visitors waited to experience WHAT? I wanted to stay, be enveloped by the material made by life-giving creatures.

wolfgang laib (b. 1950) numbers among those German artists who have been admired and respected over a long period. A retrospective that traveled to five museums in the United States closed at the Haus der Kunst in Munich in early 2003.

More Information: http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=18204&b=wolfgang%20laib#.UUWc3L-hDlo[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

wolfgang laib (b. 1950) numbers among those German artists who have been admired and respected over a long period. A retrospective that traveled to five museums in the United States closed at the Haus der Kunst in Munich in early 2003.

More Information: http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=18204&b=wolfgang%20laib#.UUWc3L-hDlo[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

wolfgang laib (b. 1950) numbers among those German artists who have been admired and respected over a long period. A retrospective that traveled to five museums in the United States closed at the Haus der Kunst in Munich in early 2003.

More Information: http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=18204&b=wolfgang%20laib#.UUWc3L-hDlo[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

wolfgang laib (b. 1950) numbers among those German artists who have been admired and respected over a long period. A retrospective that traveled to five museums in the United States closed at the Haus der Kunst in Munich in early 2003

More Information: http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=18204&b=wolfgang%20laib#.UUWc3L-hDlo[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

wolfgang laib (b. 1950) numbers among those German artists who have been admired and respected over a long period. A retrospective that traveled to five museums in the United States closed at the Haus der Kunst in Munich in early 2003

More Information: http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=18204&b=wolfgang%20laib#.UUWc3L-hDlo[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org