
Hunter Longe, Paulo Wirz
Hunter Longe & Paulo Wirz
Project Info
- đ Last Tango
- đ Arianna Gellini & Linda Jensen
- đ€ Hunter Longe, Paulo Wirz
- đ Kilian Bannwart
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Hunter Longe & Paulo Wirz, Installation view, 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart
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Hunter Longe & Paulo Wirz, Installation view, 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart

Hunter Longe & Paulo Wirz, Installation view, 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart
![Paulo Wirz, Arcabouço [Skeleton], 2023, wood, mirrors, stand lamps, 3D printed leg, wax, copper wire, ca. 200 x 200 cm. Photo: Kilian Bannwart](https://backend.kubaparis.com/submissions/2023/10/13/Hunter-Longe-Paulo-Wirz/04_2000px_HunterLonge_PauloWirz_035.jpg?v=1697193543)
Paulo Wirz, Arcabouço [Skeleton], 2023, wood, mirrors, stand lamps, 3D printed leg, wax, copper wire, ca. 200 x 200 cm. Photo: Kilian Bannwart

Hunter Longe & Paulo Wirz, Installation view, 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart
![Paulo Wirz, Semelhantes [Equals] (detail), 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart](https://backend.kubaparis.com/submissions/2023/10/13/Hunter-Longe-Paulo-Wirz/06_2000px_HunterLonge_PauloWirz_087.jpg?v=1697193544)
Paulo Wirz, Semelhantes [Equals] (detail), 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart

Hunter Longe, Death (detail), 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart

Hunter Longe & Paulo Wirz, Installation view, 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart

Hunter Longe, Relic of an Evaporated Sea XXVII (for Brian), 2023, selenite, flickering LED, magnetite sand, gypsum cement, pigments, squid ink, 115 x 94 x 34 mm. Photo: Kilian Bannwart

Hunter Longe, Relic of an Evaporated Sea XXIV, 2023, selenite, flickering LED, magnetite sand, gypsum cement, pigments, 150 x 90 x 23 mm. Photo: Kilian Bannwart

Hunter Longe, Vessel, 2023, siderite, quartz, flickering LED, dolomite sand, gypsum cement, copper sulphate, iron oxides, 120 x 87 x 35 mm. Photo: Kilian Bannwart

Hunter Longe, Rebirth, 2023, vivianite in fossilized shell, projector, video loop, 80 x 60 x 38 mm (video: dimensions variable). Photo: Kilian Bannwart

Hunter Longe, Immolation, 2023, standfieldite in slag from prehistoric sacrificial burning site in Goldbichl, Austria, 67 x 40 x 40 mm (video: dimensions variable). Photo: Kilian Bannwart
![Paulo Wirz, Semelhantes [Equals] (detail), 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart](https://backend.kubaparis.com/submissions/2023/10/13/Hunter-Longe-Paulo-Wirz/14_2000px_HunterLonge_PauloWirz_148.jpg?v=1697193547)
Paulo Wirz, Semelhantes [Equals] (detail), 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart
![Paulo Wirz, Janelas [Windows] (1-3) (detail), 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart](https://backend.kubaparis.com/submissions/2023/10/13/Hunter-Longe-Paulo-Wirz/15_2000px_HunterLonge_PauloWirz_161.jpg?v=1697193547)
Paulo Wirz, Janelas [Windows] (1-3) (detail), 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart
![Paulo Wirz, Arcabouço [Skeleton] (detail), 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart](https://backend.kubaparis.com/submissions/2023/10/13/Hunter-Longe-Paulo-Wirz/16_2000px_HunterLonge_PauloWirz_164.jpg?v=1697193548)
Paulo Wirz, Arcabouço [Skeleton] (detail), 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart
![Paulo Wirz, Janelas [Windows] (1-3), 2023, wood, hand-painted glass, personal and found objects, electronic cables and climbing plants, each 148 x 64 cm. Photo: Kilian Bannwart](https://backend.kubaparis.com/submissions/2023/10/13/Hunter-Longe-Paulo-Wirz/17_2000px_HunterLonge_PauloWirz_175_reworked.jpg?v=1697193548)
Paulo Wirz, Janelas [Windows] (1-3), 2023, wood, hand-painted glass, personal and found objects, electronic cables and climbing plants, each 148 x 64 cm. Photo: Kilian Bannwart
![Paulo Wirz, Semelhantes [Equals], 2023, wood, mirrors, thread, and beads, each 30 x 60 x 145 cm. Photo: Kilian Bannwart](https://backend.kubaparis.com/submissions/2023/10/13/Hunter-Longe-Paulo-Wirz/18_2000px_HunterLonge_PauloWirz_179reworked.jpg?v=1697193549)
Paulo Wirz, Semelhantes [Equals], 2023, wood, mirrors, thread, and beads, each 30 x 60 x 145 cm. Photo: Kilian Bannwart

Hunter Longe, Threshold I, 2023, granite, stainless steel, each approx. 60 x 140 x 110 mm. Photo: Kilian Bannwart
![Paulo Wirz, Arcabouço [Skeleton] (detail), 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart](https://backend.kubaparis.com/submissions/2023/10/13/Hunter-Longe-Paulo-Wirz/20_2000px_HunterLonge_PauloWirz_205.jpg?v=1697193549)
Paulo Wirz, Arcabouço [Skeleton] (detail), 2023. Photo: Kilian Bannwart
Hunter Longe and Paulo Wirz make us cognitively hungry in their capacity to get us pondering about some of the quintessential enigmas of life, be it the (in)finitude of oneâs own existence, the interconnectedness of things and the creative power of language and its symbolisms. In other words, both practices propose an alternative to the dogmas of humanism and anthropocentrism. One of the common denominators in the work of the two artists are relics of the past. Wirz having researched on life after death rituals, pre-modern shamanism, mummification or the history of board games and Longeâs long-standing interest in evolution, the intersection between geology and biology, minerals andtheir prismatic qualities be they esoteric or technological. Through different registers of informationâaudio, scale, visual and tactileâwe discover estranging moments be it the synesthetic experience of hearing warmth (fire) through light or the illusionof boundlessness of an infinity mirror. By revisiting our ancestral pre-modern times (Ancient history, Prehistory and Stone Age) there is a desire to give value to holistic approaches to knowledge making and sharing. An ode to our star-sun-moon-earth-animal-spirit oneness. In Longeâs words: âWe discover that which our ancestors subjectively knew: that we are of the earth, that the Earth is us.â Wirzâs note on spirituality is also key: âI have been looking into our urge to reach spirituality via the material world, our need to preserve material objects in order to be connected to the past, and the fact that faith and technology will develop simultaneously. Whether this will be political or poetic, I donât know yet.â
Using strategies of accumulation, sedimentation, transmutation and reflection the artists are interested in material processes, be they mineralogical or symbolic. Longeâs small scale sculptures are composed of fossils, calcite, selenite, vivianite, quartz, granite, gypsum, magnetic sand and electric light which he manipulates so that they undergo various chemical transformations. Longe works outdoors, casting in salt mines and riverbeds, scouting for wonderstones to then alchemically experiment on in the studio. The familiarity sensed through Wirzâs sculptural forms are informed by the domestic: windows, cabinets, and moving boxes, for example. He creates what he calls an âordered messyâ where vegetation, cables, and a variety of everyday objects are placed inside the structures. Parts of these structures which he calls âextended architectures of the selfâ are burnt, others covered with mirrors or sealed off with colored glass, making their contents barely visible in a gesture of hiddenness/revelation. Both practices are rooted in a new materialist mindset. They engender an oneiric contemplation, one that tries to answer the existential question once posed by Robert Smithson in his writings on entropy: What could happen when past and future collide into an objective present?