Jean-Paul
Sartre characterised the sticky in a similar
way. (10) In Walde’s 1989 Green Gel as well as
many variants of the group of works, such a
material is to be found between two states. On
the one hand it seems to be spreading inexorably
over the floor, obeying nothing but the
law of gravity, while on the other, akin to the
primeval genetic soup from which life arose, it
harbours potential forms able to mutate into
eggs, frogs and other living things. It shouldn’t
be forgotten that the frog, an amphibious
creature living on both land and water and
which occurs in a number of different works by
Walde, also contains mythical potential – just
think what happens when it’s kissed!
Expanding materials creeping across the
flooring had already been tried out in thefloor sculptures of the 1960s. Lynda Benglis for instance created sculptures by pouring
onto the gallery floor liquid latex, in which the different colours appeared to have stretched out depending on their flow velocities as if in marbled paper. Meanwhile César Baldaccini (usually known as just César) executed his expansions on foaming polyurethane that set quickly. (11) But the flowing forms of the small, flat floor sculptures by Lynda Benglis and the polished surfaces of César’s solidified expansions simply recall the process of polymerisation, which is identical with the method applied to make the works. By contrast, Walde’s Green Gel suggests the bubbling of a dynamic, genetically active mass. Moreover, like other works made out of malleable materials by Walde, it possesses a fascinatingly ambivalent colourfulness which, although signalling vitality, also touches upon the edge of the ›poisonous‹.
The material challenging particularly
tactile needs appears in different contexts andfunctions. The malleability of the ductile gel is experienced by visitors in the most direct
manner when the material – wrapped in transparent film and hung on the wall like a giant
picture – is worked with the pressure of their own hands. After all, this ›magic board‹ can be
continuously reworked and the gel becomes like ›prima materia‹ – the matrix of all possible
forms.
Handmates, which could be seen
and touched for example in 1997 at documenta X, also uses gel to produce the suggestion
of vitality. The egg-shaped elements
were presented as worry stones consisting of
a mollusc-like material seemingly with a life
of its own. A flexible, thin latex skin completed
the layer of gel lying beneath, which
surrounded a solid inner acrylic core. (12) The
malleability of the gel was increased by body
heat when handled. The gel’s tendency to
become more fluid as the temperature rose
prompted in Cf : Wagner, pp 46 f, 194 f.Martin Walde (exhibition catalogue),Städtische Galerie Nordhorn, 2003, p 36.
Ursula Harter: Die Versuchung des
Heiligen Antonius. Zwischen Religion
und Wissenschaft, Berlin, 1998, especially
pp 166 – 67.
