Barbara Seiler

The exhibition title Don’t Worry I’ll Organize Your Memory plays with a certain dualism. The sentence seems to be assuasive, but simultaneously it holds something worrying. When you look at Sara Masüger’s (*1978, Zug, CH) sculptures the impression changes equally: you are fascinated and irritated at the same time. On the one hand, you can see familiar fragments like hands, faces and ears, but on the other hand there are embarrassing, weird forms, which give an arcane aura to the sculptures. Masüger plays with the viewer’s perception and also with extreme contrasts. Not only the confidant is accompanied by the unconversant, also the impression of fragility contrasts to the sculpture’s strong presence in the room, which is increased by the black materiality. Further the rigidity rivals with the apparently floating form. Like frozen moments the artist shows gestures and tries to hold them on. Masüger sensitizes the viewer for the fleetingness of moves and the caducity of moments and creates the impression that the retained dynamic seems to repeat and to move on in the viewer’s mind. This fact becomes particularly apparent in the series Kinetic Replacement (2016). The solid form creates a memory of the move and holds the fleetingness up. Sara Masüger searches for these moments of disturbing by dealing with temporality and memory. Thereby she works with her own body. The often theme of hands establishes a relationship to the moves per se and further to the sculpture, which is made of these moves. The tin objects of the open series I talk to you later (2016) show ears and face fragments. These works also point up the fleetingness of the spoken word and the sight, likewise a room’s memory. Another work Untitled (2016) calls attention to the relationship between the solid and the free structure. At this point Masüger plays with the memory by copying a steel bar consciously failed and turning it into rubber. The new tin works specially relate to drawings. The casting channels are visible and testify the working process. Thereby sculpture and casting channels are equal and their connection is distinguished. On the one hand the fascinating polarities of Sara Masüger’s works contrast each other, but on the other hand they find a harmonic dialogue with each other. An important topic of Masüger’s sculptural work is to search for this balance and the equality between the polarities. The artist also analyses the relationship between sculpture and pedestal, which are often white tiled. Masüger puts the smooth, always similar tiles consciously imperfect together. According to Sara Masüger the pedestal is the sculpture’s home. Only together sculpture and pedestal get their strong expression. The fugitive moment, in which you see a form and lose it again. The solid form, which seems to melt away. The attempt to build a picture out of mind and then destroying this picture during the working process holds something brutal, but at the same time it holds the freedom of novel and unpredictability. The fragility and temporality of Masüger’s works are only visible by realizing these polarities. In this way, the viewer gets a more conscious perception: So, I’m not worried you’ll organize my memory. Sara Masüger, 1978 born in Zug (CH), lives and works in Zürich. Her works have been shown in recent solo exhibitions: Hibernation, Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp, The Forestay Museum of Art, Cully (2015), Fare thee well, Miss Carousel, with Loredana Sperini and Tanja Rosic, Kunstmusem Olten (2013), Le ravissement et l’aube, déjà, with Marc Bauer, Musée de Pully, Lausanne (2012), FRAC Auvergne (2016) or in the gallery Freymond-Guth, Zurich. Recent group exhibitions include The Dark Side of the Moon, Kunstmuseum St. Gallen (2016), Jahresausstellung, Kunstmuseum Luzern (2006/2010/2014), Sacré 101, Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich (2014) or Que serra serra, La Station, Nizza (2011). Sara Masüger received the Uriot Prize of the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam, in 2002.