Michael Sailstorfer

C111, 2011

The Berlin based sculptor Michael Sailstorfer addresses the practice of ‘real collage’ in his work commissioned for the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection by rebuilding a Mercedes-Benz 190 E (W201, serially produced 1982-1993) as a legendary Mercedes-Benz C 111 (the C 111 series consisted around 1970 of prototypes and experimental vehicles). His concept is making use of the well disposable 1980s series vehicle, which is transformed, with loving attention to detail, into an art version of the rare and highly desirable prototype model C 111, the artist’s dream car since his youth. “I would like to create versatile but at the same time functioning sculptures in places, which I like.” (M.S.) Sailstorfer sets his hand on objects properly, they get dismantled, deformed, adapted, reassembled and reinterpreted into ambivalent but figures. The space occupied by his sculptures is as essential as the space, which surrounds them. Sailstorfer’s transformation process is even more important than the final object and that is why in the end every working step has to remain clearly visible in his sculptures.