Otis Laubert belongs to the artists who can easily renew the banal everyday objects and things by joining together the seemingly unrelated elements and thus creating the artworks which can make us smile because of their original poetics, gentle humour and the shift of meaning into unexpected coherence.
One of these artworks is the object ´The Fireman´ which belongs to the series of authorial clothing created in the mid- 80s and 90s. Using different objects Laubert has given the old clothes new function and meaning. The series is dominated by suits – specific suits for the particular type of people. For example the suit sticked with bank notes is titled ´The New Rich´, the suit decorated with small coins is titled ´The Economical´, the suit with badges ´The Collector´ and the suit sticked with postmarks is titled ´The Postman´. The ´Fireman´ consists of a mosaic completely sticked with hundreds of safety matches with a blue tip. Such an assemblage changes not only the character of the clothing, but also its function in a funny way. Laubert as a keen collector and his playful approach, dadaistic humour and also the ability to give the old things a new meaning is fully present in this work. The blue colour of those matches can refer to the traditional fireman´s uniform, but a fireman could hardly extinguish fire in a safety match uniform.
Otis Laubert was born on January 8, 1946 in Valaská, near Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, as a fourth child into the family of Anna and Július Laubert. In 1961-66 he attended the School of Applied Arts in Bratislava. He began as a restorer, later worked in the painting studios of the Slovak National Theatre and in a fair company as a worker. In 1970 he joined the 1st open studio on Rudolf Sikora´s house in Bratislava, which was one of the first important creative meetings of artists working on the unofficial scene. In 1978 he participated in the exhibition of young artists at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava and Smolenice, later known as a group A-R (K. Bočkayová, M. Bočkay, L. Čarný, D. Fischer, V. Kordoš, I. Minárik, M. Meško, M. Mudroch, D. Tóth).
His first idividual exhibition was in 1981 in Orlova, Ostrava, Czech Republic. After 1989 he has begun to exhibit his work more intensively at home and abroad, e.g.: Vienna, Budapest, Amsterdam, Berlin, Dresden. Since 1990 he has cooperated with Vienna gallery owner Hans Knoll. In 1995 he spent one month at the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, USA. His artwork was introduced in 2000 at the representative exhibition ´The history of Slovak Visual Art – 20th century´ at the Slovak National Gallery and the presentations of his large-scale works from the last period are ´The colour bearer got maried to a cartographer´ (Galéria umenia, Nové Zámky, 2007), ´Bread crumbs from the Knulp´s bag (Liptovská galéria Petra Michala Bohúňa in Liptovský Mikuláš, 2008 a Galéria Miloša Alexandra Bazovského in Trenčín, 2009) and ´A Strange Selection´ (Dom umenia, Bratislava, 2010). His works are represented in Slovak and foreign collections.
— Omar Mirza
Literature
Gažíková, Zuzana: Omrvinky z Knulpovej kapsy (katalóg k výstave), Liptovský Mikuláš 2009. Geržová, Jana: Otis Laubert, Bratislava 2001.
Inventory No.: F 42
Artist: Otis Laubert
Title: The Fireman
Year of origin: 1996
Technical details: combined technique
Material: combined material
Dimensions: 84 × 73 × 5 cm
Signature: unsigned
This acquisition has been supported using public funds provided by the Ministry of Culture of the Slovak Republic.