Franz Erhard Walther - Determinations of Proportion

From May 12 until September 30, 2018, Estancia Femsa - Casa Luis Barragán presents Determinations of Proportion, a solo exhibition by German artist Franz Erhard Walther.

Walther was one of the most notorious and unique voices leading the artistic experimentations around language and the materiality of the art object that took place in the 1960s. The exhibition in Casa Barragán brings together several works created by the artist from the 1960s until today. Determinations of Proportion showcases pieces from Walther’s iconic series First Work Set (1963-1969), a selection of early drawings installed in the Barragán Studio and a new site-specific drawing created by Walther, especially for the house.

Estancia FEMSA - Casa Luis Barragán invited Mexican curator and independent critic Daniel Garza Usabiaga to collaborate on a publication that complements this exhibition, delving into the conceptual connections between Walther’s material and poetic explorations and Luis Barragán’s legacy. This publication will also include the first translation to Spanish and English of Walther’s text Architektur: Vernichtung des Raums, written in the 1990s.

Throughout his artistic career, Franz Erhard Walther has explored topics related to the body, sculpture, architecture, and the concept of action. Most of his work takes place in the intersection between different techniques and artistic languages, emphasizing the mental and poetic associations that arise at the moment when the body of the viewer experiences and thus brings a work of art into completion. Walther understands the artwork as an act of communication, a "sculptural action in space." As such, time, body, language and memory become the building blocks of his sculptural actions. In the context of Casa Barragán, the curatorial approach proposes a dialogue with the legacy of Luis Barragán by pointing out the affective and emotional dimension of his architecture, concepts addressed by Walther in his own practice through the haptic quality of his pieces, as well as in the unpredictability of the artwork’s activations by spectators. These qualities evoke a spatial experimentation that is central to both Walther and Barragán’s practices.

Determinations of Proportion takes place in parallel, and complements the exhibition Objects, to use / Instruments for Processes in Museo Jumex.

Franz Erhard Walther (b. 1939 / Fulda, Germany) One the of Germany’s most prominent living artists, his work has been exhibited extensively across Europe since the 1960s. He has been included in four editions of Documenta that took place between the 1970s and 1980s. Recent retrospectives of his work have been organized by Mamco-Musée d’Art modern et Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland (2010), Dia:Beacon, New York (2010–12), WIELS-Centre d’Art Contemporain, Brussels, Belgium (2014), CAPC-Musee d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux, France (2015), and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2017). In 2017, Walther was awarded the Golden Lion for Best Artist in the exhibition Viva Arte Viva at the 57th Edition of the Venice Biennale, Italy.