German sculptor Michail Pirgelis breathes new life into decommissioned aircrafts, creating abstracted and monumental works that reflect on human capabilities, as well as humanities failures.
Read MoreMichail Pirgelis was born in 1976 in Essen, Germany and grew up in Xanthi, Greece. He graduated from the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in 2009. Pirgelis' work has been recognised by award-giving bodies such as the Audi Art Award for New Positions at Art Cologne in 2010; the Adolf Loos Prize from the Van den Valentyn Foundation in 2008; and the Villa Romana Prize in 2007. He has also received nominations for awards such as the Hans-Purrmann Preis in 2015 and the Deste Prize in 2013.
Pirgelis' work stems from the traditions of post-minimalism and the readymade. Utilising found objects, he subtly modifies their surfaces, changing very little to create sculptures that reference the objects' previous human use while also positioning these items as relics of civilisation.
Pirgelis' sculptures are exclusively created from discarded materials he finds in scrapyards. His process has involved sifting through aircraft cemeteries in California and Arizona, where parts of passenger planes are left to be dismantled, recycled, and reused. He then isolates specific elements from these vessels to create sculptures that allow viewers to question the materiality and 'improbability' of human locomotion and flight.
Pirgelis' first exploration into aviation was Ikarus (2001), in which he installed a whole section of a Boeing 727 with its seats covered in wax in reference to the mythological story of the same name. Since Ikarus, Pirgelis has approached his interest in aircrafts with a more abstracted and minimal lens. In UNIVRS (2012/18), Pirgelis exhibited a cross-section of the passenger area of an Airbus 300. This monumental sculpture, which, at first glance looks like an arch, is only recognisable as a plane by identifying the signature rounded windows, one on each side of the structure. Apart from exhibiting the plane and its exterior structure, Pirgelis has worked with seatbelts, toilets, and overhead lockers.
Pirgelis has also played with specific rectangular sections of the aircraft's façade to create almost painterly, wall-bound work. In Trading News (2015), the artist cut out a small section of a plane to show part of an Air Canada logo, then lightly painted over it, casting a veil over the maple leaf. Another work, Italian Radio (2019), in which he used another section from a plane, appears to be an abstract painting as Pirgelis zeroes in on the minute details of the aircraft's surface. In his 2022 solo exhibition Opaque Surfaces at Sprüth Magers, Berlin, Pirgelis continues this trajectory of responding to and working with decommissioned aircraft while also further integrating painterly references in his work.
Michail Pirgelis has held solo exhibitions at Autocenter, Berlin and Arkothek, Cologne. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the Kunsthalle Nuremberg; Athens Biennale; Istanbul Modern; and Stadtmuseum Dusseldorf.
Arianna Mercado | Ocula | 2022
