The Patient Artist

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Laib began working with pollen in 1977, and it has become one of his signature forms. He hand-collects varieties that occur naturally near his home, including pine, hazelnut, and dandelion, and stores them in jars. A season may yield two jars of one type and a mere half jar of another. In most of his pollen installations, Laib sifts a single type of pollen (he doesn't mix varieties) onto the floor of a gallery or church. Upon entering the room, one is immersed in a large field of intense primary yellow--and in the smell. The work creates an intensity and purity of reflected light that is unique.

Laib also sometimes arranges pollen in minute piles. In The Five Mountains Not to Climb On, five cones of pollen form a perfect row. In this minimal visual statement, the cones can refer to mountains, temples, or offerings. The way these tiny, precious accumulations can fill a vaulted hall with their immense presence is hard to believe until one experiences it firsthand.

Laib's installations are not photogenic, and he realized early in his career that documenting his work would pose a problem. He chose to photograph everything himself in order to retain complete control, and the photos have their own beauty. Among the most powerful are those he's taken of himself installing the work (he sets up the shots before moving in front of the camera). These process photos allow us to witness the ceremony of creation. By making the private act public, the photographs offer viewers a new way to understand the work.

For some artists, the choice of medium is more or less a neutral decision. Deciding to paint in oil or cast in bronze hardly draws extra attention. When an artist selects sifted pollen or poured milk, however, the work is charged with special meaning before he begins. Instead of making his work out in the field, Laib takes natural materials indoors and makes art there. By isolating his materials in new settings, Laib reduces them to their purest essence. Hazelnut pollen becomes a reflection upon light and color; milk becomes a meditation upon sustenance.

Laib keeps his biography off center stage, but his life story sheds light on his work. He was raised in southern Germany, and his family took frequent journeys abroad, including trips to Turkey and India. He studied medicine, wrote a doctoral thesis on the purity of drinking water in India, then chose not to practice medicine but to pursue a career in art instead. He, his wife, daughter, and parents now all live on the same rural property where he was born. They sit, eat, and sleep on mats instead of conventional furniture. Far from the art capitals of New York, Paris, and Berlin, they live a plain, secluded, almost ascetic life.

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