Plus – Minus

Text by Domenico de Chirico

The Viennese artist Clemens Wolf, born in 1981, is widely recognized for his innovative artistic approach, which uniquely blends material elements and conceptual models. His artistic research unfolds through various forms, including sculpture, painting, and installation, where the interplay between body and space, the tangible and the abstract, the predictable and the unexpected becomes the beating heart of his creativity. His work, constantly oscillating between pure abstraction and hints of stylized figuration, explores the tension between opposing and diachronic forces such as lightness and heaviness, stillness and movement, solidity and vulnerability.

Since his early years of study at the University of Arts in Linz, Wolf developed a strong interest in decaying materials such as fences and abandoned objects, using them to explore the majestic transformative potential of matter. From the very start of his artistic journey, he focused on the beauty of decay and transience. In this context, ruins and urban spaces become visual symbols, allegories of the ephemeral condition of existence.

Wolf creates large-format monochromatic landscapes with heavily reduced surfaces, much like the old masters. To realize these surfaces, he uses large paper stencils and sprayed oil paint—a process that clearly references his graffiti background. In his recent Expanded Metal Paintings series, however, he uses expanded metal mesh as a brush. This technique gives rise to expressive-gestural compositions, where the structure is determined by the mesh’s distinctive pattern, generating a unique visual dynamic. Here, he explores the relationship between the pictorial surface and the expressive energy of the artistic gesture, aiming to transcend the physical image to create unrepeatable moments. This approach is also evident in his works with parachutes, where the ripples treated with epoxy resin reveal a deeper dimension of his artistic expression.

One of the distinctive features of his art is the use of parachutes, which Wolf recovers, transforms, and shapes into imposing sculptures or painted surfaces. For the artist, the parachute is not just a practical object but a symbol of the tension between the desire for freedom (ascent) and the weight of gravity (descent). Treated with epoxy resin, these parachutes become towering sculptures, revealing a tangible contrast between the material and the treatment they undergo. The resulting folds and modeled shapes reflect a profound study of fragility, balance, and resistance.

His works habitually reveal an almost organic quality, where the surface becomes fertile ground for the continuous interaction between matter and abstraction. Thus, the epoxy resin not only fixes the form but also captures the energy of the gesture, creating glossy surfaces that emphasize the tension between rigor and permeability.

Based on these premises, the two chapters of the exhibition—Tension and Plus, Minus—occupy the space extensively, even along the stairs, gradually deconstructing the idea of ordinary space and expanding it. They are not presented as separate concepts but rather as two symbiotic hemispheres harmoniously connected. Both explore tension from different perspectives: while Tension focuses on physical and spatial aspects, Plus, Minus investigates it as an internal dynamic, a web of relationships emerging through color contrasts and formal interconnections.

Specifically, Tension, set within the unique architecture of the water tower—a space inherently tense due to its stratified environment, heights, voids, and architectural forces—uses the site-specific installation of parachutes stretched, laid, or suspended, surrounded by their respective cords. Notably, the work The Space as a Field of Tension features a parachute spread across the stairwell, making visible the forces of pull and release, while The Curvature of the Space as a Dialogue Surface uses the parachute slider (typically joining the cords) to emphasize the organic shape of the space and the delicate balance between control and release. With Water Tank as a Spherical Counterpart, an immersive installation creating the illusion of infinite space—almost like a starry sky nestled within the tower’s tank—Wolf explores the contrast between water, the sky, and gravity, blurring the boundary between inside and outside.

Tension as a State Between Forces connects the exhibition to the perception of opposing forces such as weight and lightness, constraint and freedom, resistance and vulnerability, inviting visitors to explore the crucial transition between these opposing states—emblematic of the complex nature of our sensory perception. This body of work creates tension fields where materials and imaginative scenarios first clash and then integrate, triggering deep, conflicting emotions and reflections on the human condition. As Friedrich Nietzsche said, “the struggle between two forces is the condition of all existence.” In Wolf’s work, this struggle undoubtedly becomes the creative force constantly fueling his artistic vocation.

Parallel to this, the exhibition Plus, Minus—through a fluid chain of works originating from the symbols + and –—further explores the visual and conceptual contrast of opposites, using a limited palette of red and blue. These primary colors serve as metaphors for polarity and opposing forces, eternally in tension. Here, the gallery entrance is characterized by Barriers and Transitions, structures reflecting the duality between separation and connection, anticipating the theme of polarity—expressed simply through positive and negative, addition and subtraction, as well as dynamism and stillness—as the foundation of existence. Temporal Dimension and Artistic Process highlights the evolution of creative ideas over time, with expressions that complete and transform themselves in a conscious dialogue between past and present.

In this sense, Tension and Plus, Minus are not two independent approaches but rather extensions of one another, both part of the same artistic research rooted in the idea that tension manifests both as a physical confrontation between opposing forces and as a state of reconciliation and balance between them. Like the Heraclitean principle of panta rhei (“everything flows”), which states that everything is in flux and nothing remains unchanged, Wolf’s work fits perfectly into a worldview where matter’s vital momentum and the forces it harbors are in constant metamorphosis. His works not only reflect the intrinsic mutability of existence but also explore the interaction between all these opposing states. Each of the two exhibition paths amplifies the idea that our relationship with space, the body, and natural forces depends on our ability to adapt and respond to eternal change.

This principle speaks not only of the constant movement of things but also suggests that change itself is proportional, perceived differently depending on one’s perspective. Ultimately, Clemens Wolf’s works explore this very relativity of time and space, revealing how every moment of tension and transformation is unique and unrepeatable—an unparalleled interpretation of a never-ending flow. In this sense, his art not only challenges our linear or seemingly logical understanding of reality but also invites us to recognize the beautiful and powerful inevitability of the mutability of our being-in-the-world in the Heideggerian sense, where every experience and perception is never separate from the context that generates it but is an integral part of it, always in motion. Here, the material’s working process coincides with the unpredictability of the outcome, and the outcome with the transience of astonishing spatiotemporal abstraction.