Axel Lieber, Grosse Weisse Blase, 2018
, Comics, fine art print, colour, permanent marker, Kappa, 86 x 124 x 2 cm, © Axel Lieber / Bildrecht, Wien 2021
Kollitsch Collection

Grosse Weisse Blase (2018) is a collage consisting of many small speech bubbles from a range of comics. The text is painted over in colour and the corresponding pictures are missing altogether. Removed from their context and devoid of content, only the shape of the outer lines refers to the origin of the bubbles in the comic book. Squashed together and re-arranged, they now give shape to an oversize giant bubble that generates new room for thought through the uncompromising reduction of text and image. In this way, Alex Lieber brings about a shift in the rhetorical message: “These aren’t stories of superheroes. The protagonists are form, shape, and fragment."

Axel Lieber, Mein konstruktiver Alltag, 18.08.19, 2019
, Cardboard, wood, 139 x 83 x 44 cm
Kollitsch Collection

Axel Lieber’s art makes use of everyday objects such as furniture, clothing, or cardboard used for packaging, which serve as a source of inspiration and starting point for his sculptures and objects. In Mein konstruktiver Alltag, 18.08.2019 (2019), packaging boxes for everyday consumer items are arranged into a delicate, grid-like construct. The boxes, hollowed out so that only their edges remain, are joined together to form a complex frame system of lines and hollow spaces. Remnants of letters and colours indicate the original function of the boxes and refer to the connection between packaging and content as well as the causal relation between fullness and emptiness. They constitute identifying features that complete the empty space on an imaginary level, bringing about a new perception and providing a glimpse of modern-day consumer habits at the same time.