The ironic sculptures by Matthias Verginer

Matthias Verginer

Italian artist Matthias Verginer plays with scale and symbolism in what he calls his “ironic sculptures.” These wooden pieces, ranging in scale from small works that can be held to enormous figures. Often, these works feature a nude figure alongside wild animals.

Matthias Verginer studied advertising graphics and sculpture at School of Arts, Selva/Gardena. Then, in 2001, he started his apparenticeship under his father, Willy Verginer.

In 2004 he was at IHM in Munich. In the same year, he became member of Unika art fair in Ortisei and since then his works have been exhibited for several year at Arte Padova (2005-2007) and Tradefair Milano (2005-2008).
In 2012 Liquid art system displays his works in Positano.

Matthias Verginer's works are full of humor. They celebrate an imagination which at first glance seems ambiguous and funny, but the laugh they provoke does not appeal to sentiment, rather, in the words of Henri Bergson, "it appeals to intelligence pure and simple.". They do not just entertain and charm us, they also invite us to reflect on the mechanisms with which we perceive reality, its questionable or absolute truth and its changing or immovable aspects. The works are made up of a highly colored assemblage of animals and human figures sculpted from wood. They are realistic in their similarity to reality and absurd in their ties to meaning. They are as bewildering and mysterious as dreams, they told within themselves both surrealism and magic realism, sophisticated quotations, literary references and bizarre intuitions.

Matthias Verginer titles his compositions "Hot Whale Surfing", "Tomato Tan", "Damn Hat", The Rabbit and the Turtle", "Lifting Four Watermelons" and so on. The humorous and brilliant aspect is in the titles also, which are never banal or straight-forward. The titles of the artworks by Matthias Verginer always inspire new and witty speculations. In the ironic artworks of Matthias Verginer, we can clearly perceive the expressive use of bright orange, sugary pink and brilliant blue. We can also clearly feel the abundant and precise forms of the bodies, their disproportionateness measured against the harmony of movement and gesture. Both of these are well considered aspects which are part of, and vectors for, the irony and playfulness in this series of artworks by Matthias Verginer.