Das Figur-Grund Problem in der Architektur des Barock (Le problème fig…

Alongside Thomas Schütte, the German artist Reinhard Mucha was part of the late-1980s renewal movement in German sculpture. The start of the title – The Figure-Ground Problem in Baroque Architecture – suggests an art-history treaty in the manner of Heinrich Wölfflin, while the words that follow in brackets (for You Alone There Remains Only the Grave) carry a heavy charge of foreboding. A sort of mausoleum celebrating only the void it encloses and constructed of such everyday objects as office desks and stepladders, this architectural sculpture evokes, amongst other things, Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International.