Woven Worlds: Thomas Bayrle builds a Madonna
German Pop artist Thomas Bayrle tours his home and studio, and discusses the architectural challenge (and triumph) of building a Wire Madonna at ICA Miami. This site-specific commission, currently on long-term view in ICA Miami’s former home in the landmark Moore Building, is Thomas Bayrle’s most significant monumental sculpture to date, and is a radical dramatization of cultural icons that the artist has explored since the early 1960s.
Known for his prescient depictions of mega cities and bodies consumed by machines, Thomas Bayrle (b. 1937, Berlin) is a Frankfurt-based artist whose works spans mediums and movements including Pop, Op, and Conceptual art. His humorous and satirical multi-media works are characterized by “super- forms,” large images composed of repetitive smaller cell-like patterns. His work is influenced by his experience of growing up in post-Nazi Germany, where he trained and worked as an industrial weaver. Other major influences include the Frankfurt School of political and aesthetic theory and his collaborations on corporate identities with international corporations.