Skip to Content

The Arts Intel Report

Wolfgang Laib: City of Silence

Wolfgang Laib’s beeswax sculptures, 2022.

Sept 8 – Oct 3, 2022
Ely House, 37 Dover St, London W1S 4NJ, United Kingdom

For his first U.K. show in over two decades, the German sculptor Wolfgang Laib returns to a core motif in his practice. Laib groups together buildings he’s made from beeswax, shapes that refer to the places of dwelling and worship he’s experienced in the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia. Houses, towers, Christian reliquary shrines, and Mesopotamian religious step pyramids cover the gallery floors. Providing a symbolic means of transportation through the space, brass boats line the walls. A series of works on paper speaks to the sculptures, providing a glimpse into Laib’s creative process, which revolves around ideas of ritual and repetition. —Clara Molot

Photo courtesy of Thaddaeus Ropac