Olaf Metzel
Papierkorb

For the work Papierkorb (Wastebasket), which was produced in five versions differing in form and content, Metzel tongue-in-cheek takes the concept underlying his folds even further. The aluminum sculptures, which resemble crumpled paper but are created using a complex printing process and craftmanship, are no longer presented as wall objects, which would make their status as works of art obvious, but are presented as trompe-l’œils in the container in which they are disposed of. The wastebasket itself, more or less forcibly “worked” by Metzel, becomes a piece of art here. As ambivalent material images, the editions trace the artistic creative process between design and rejection, the will to compose and destroy, while at the same time satirizing it. What accumulates in the studio, discarded as ideas and seemingly carelessly thrown away – sketches, color samples, magazine pages – flows back into the sphere of art through elaborate material refinement.
Text: Eva Scharrer