Transformation is at the heart of Michael Sailstorfer’s art. Although familiar objects are discernible in many of his works, Sailstorfer does not produce readymades in the manner of Marcel Duchamp; he is not content with adopting found objects or situations as they are, leaving them unchanged and parking them, now functionless, in the exhibition space. Instead, he puts the materials he uses to new and unusual purposes. A sailplane may easily turn into a tree house; or a fruit tree, conversely, into a rocket. More generally, Sailstorfer, born 1979 in Velden/Germany living in Berlin today, often plays nature and technology, city and country off against each other. For example, he catapulted a streetlight into the sky, turning it into a shooting star; on another occasion, he equipped the shelters at outlying bus stops, a typical feature of sparsely populated areas, with power and water connections and furniture.

The artist’s edition Sailstorfer has designed for “Texte zur Kunst” is based on a similar process of transformation. Taking two tubes of the sort otherwise used in truck wheels, Sailstorfer squeezes one into the other and suspends the entire construction from the ceiling. The resulting object suggests a dark and heavy “cloud.” As with reading clouds, whose shapes inspire an infinite stream of associations in the imagination, Michael Sailstorfer’s work illustrates that we need not see in things what their outward appearance purports.