At PICA we recognise that we are situated within the unceded lands of the Whadjuk people of the Noongar Nation. We pay our respects and offer our gratitude to Elders past and present, and to those emerging leaders in the community. We acknowledge all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and the importance of their care and continued connection to culture, community and Country.

Always was, always will be.

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Thomas Rentmeister

Objects. Food. Room | Thomas Rentmeister

Objects. Food. Room | Thomas Rentmeister

Thomas Rentmeister is a leading German artist whose fascination with everyday materials and the ideas associated with minimalism, surrealism and pop art has lead to the development of a very distinctive sculptural, installation and painting practice.

In this exhibition, the artist’s first major solo show in Australia, we see bulging, car-like sculptures, a wall-size monochrome painting made of nutella and a vast, white landscape of sugar, cotton wool, polystyrene and linen from which a tower of fridges emerge.

Thomas Rentmeister has been producing these types of works, once dubbed “dirty minimalism” for over twenty-five years and has exhibited widely in museums and galleries across Europe.

He piles, models, builds, paints and casts with materials as diverse as potato chips, sugar, nutella, hotel laundry, tissue boxes, tampons, nappy rash cream and old refrigerators, often playing a profound and witty game that questions the nature of art. He raises the question of what is real and what is not, regularly transforming the everyday into the sublime and showing us the beauty of materials we normally ignore.