The concentrated attention to material and its processing is evident in the latest work by artist duo V&B. They meekly accept the fact that in postmodern times “everything has already been done once,” as French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty put it. So, they recast themselves, as it were, by compressing plaster scraps from their studio and endlessly working the resulting lumps of material into multicoloured sculptures. Their repetitive actions produce a tranquility that is tangible in the perfectly smooth surfaces. At the same time, each sanded layer brings out new colours and echoes of earlier work, like a kind of archaeological exercise.
