Golem

Gelatin, aka Gelitin, is an Austrian art collective comprising Wolfgang Gantner, Ali Janka, Florian Reither, and Tobias Urban. The group have worked together since 1993. Golem is one of more than 40 sculptures which featured in the group’s 2017 exhibition, New York Golem, at Greene Naftali gallery in New York. The artists made the sculptures by penetrating and shaping pieces of clay in order to give them form and life as sculpture. The exhibition’s title refers to the narrative of the golem in Jewish folklore. In Jewish legend, a golem is an anthropomorphic figure formed from inanimate matter. In the Middle Ages, golems were believed to have been created in moments of ecstatic pleasure. With etymological roots that date back to the story of Adam’s creation in Psalm 139:16, the golem’s symbolic power endures through continuing reinterpretations.

By presenting their ceramic works on individualised plinths, Gelatin collapsed the story and symbolism of the golem with a formal language derived from histories of the readymade and Surrealist assemblage, traditions which radically undermined assumptions surrounding the associations between art and aesthetic value at the beginning of the twentieth century. The fabrication of plinths from clay, wood, concrete, furniture, and other household objects reflects the group’s use of readily available materials elsewhere in their practice. More specifically, by drawing a parallel between the story of creation that marks the golem’s birth and forms of artistic production that imbue found objects with a value differentiated from their function, they comment on the process by which those objects come to life as works of art. It is through both the performative process underpinning the ceramic sculptures, and the miscellany of materials upon which they are displayed, that Gelatin serve their critical take. The sculptures, so Gelatin claim, “come to life in the gallery,” having been awakened by the group’s engagement with their constituent parts. The analogy between the tale of the golem and the alchemic nature of artistic production and value becomes clear. As David Muenzer has written: “The equation of sexual and creative energy, along with the claim that artistry endows form with life, is a foundational myth of modernism… Gelatin’s objects perform a hyperbolic version of these values.” 1

1 David Muenzer, “Gelatin: New York Golem,” in Artforum, available at

https://www.artforum.com/picks/gelatin-69681