reach us

Helmut Lang / “Burry”, 2016

A larger meditation on acts of creative destruction and the gestures of reassembly/renewal that attend them. Scratching the surface and striking your soul, Helmut Lang’s first institutional solo exhibition in the US on view at Dallas Contemporary until 21 August, 2016.

Words by Anca Macavei.

Courtesy of the artist and Sperone Westwater, New York.

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.”
(Marcel Proust)

Helmut Lang, the Viennese master of deconstruction and minimalism, who made a name for himself in the late 80s and early 90s fashion with his sharp, austere and intellectual designs has left fashion without looking back in 2005, devoting himself solely to his art ever since.

Over the past decade, he has developed an artistic practice founded in enigmatic interventions and characterised by a distinct use of materials and textures. Often created in series, his sculptural works explore organic variations that occur when working extensively with a single medium. Lang acquires his materials from diverse sources and repurposes them, baring their histories of former use.

In first US institutional solo show, evocatively called “Burry“ and curated by Peter Doroshenko, he is proposing enigmatic sculptures in gold, white and black, made out of sheepskin and treated with tar hovering between supported and self-sufficient in the Dallas Contemporary art museum. The exhibition focuses on the transfiguration of the sheepskin, a soft and warm material by changing its original purpose, mutilating it and transforming it into a cold material shaped into abstract sculptures with almost mythological undercurrents to it and with a brand new conscience and royal powers.

As the writer and the show’s installer, Neville Wakefield says, the exhibit is a larger meditation on acts of creative destruction and the gestures of reassembly and renewal that attend them” that not only scratches the surface but it also striking your soul.

‘Burry’, on view at Dallas Contemporary until 21 August, 2016.

Words by Anca Macavei.

Courtesy of the artist and Sperone Westwater, New York
Courtesy of the artist and Sperone Westwater, New York
Courtesy of the artist and Sperone Westwater, New York

You may also like

The Magic That Breathes in Mexico

Art&Culture | Spotlight
In Mexico City, belief is a pulse beneath the streets, threading through devotion to the Virgen de Guadalupe, the shadow of Santa Muerte, and the hidden corners where ritual still breathes. This generation does not inherit faith. It crawls into it, shaping it, twisting it, drawing power through study and practice. In the city’s heart, a house waits, with walls steeped in smoke and intention, where magic is lived and performed.

Phantom Bridges / Nika Qutelia

Art&Culture | Interview
Like a crack in a mirror, the artist’s works do not divert our gaze from reality, but instead reveal it, stripping away every illusion and filter. A self-taught career unfolds through unbalanced and disorienting worlds which, rather than leading us astray, ultimately act as a guide toward a more authentic direction.

Resonant Interdependence / Julian Charrière

Art&Culture | Interview
From ice expanses to the ocean’s depths, the artist situates his work within a broader dialogue between contemporary art and science. In anticipation of his upcoming solo exhibition at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Germany (March 14 – July 12, 2026), he explores how environmental forces and rigorous research intertwine to redefine humanity’s role within planetary systems.

reach us

 
Charlie RumpBacklit