REINHARD MUCHA

Working through the history of contemporary Germany with an acute understanding of the importance of place, Reinhard Mucha produces sculptures, installations, films and photographs that reflect upon collective identity, memory and the structures of institutional power. Many of his works incorporate aged materials from his own past; studio floorboards, unopened letters, or even whole bicycles, supplemented by a devotion to craftsmanship that manifests itself in a humble aesthetic that merges past with present. In his multifaceted installations, Mucha concocts a form of site-specificity with meticulous detail. Whole rooms may be recreated within rooms, mining his own past to stage again objects, works or whole exhibitions. His sculptures make use of industrial materials – aluminium, glass, felt, steel, board – that bridge a gap between functional object, recalling museum showcases, or baroque theatrical installations that saturate the language of minimalist sculpture with history. Uniting these different elements of his practice is an awareness of the passing of time, imparting the weight of history upon his materials to draw attention to how they inhabit as many lives as the spaces in which they exist.