Untitled (A Drawing Relating to an Unrealized Public Project)

Installation artist Manfred Pernice uses shipping containers and packaging to create site-specific sculptures and spatial interventions. His constructions—sometimes architectural, sometimes more scattered—might incorporate recognizable forms like a house or a bookcase, yet are tinged with a sense of the absurd and the ambiguous. Speaking of his choice of materials, Pernice has said: “The container is a metaphor since these pieces are not built to be usable storage or shipping boxes. Rather, the installation is an abstraction of the strange situation of containers, where all sorts of disparate things are organized together for a certain period of time, just as in an exhibition.” Often compared to Gordon Matta-Clark, Pernice sees his work as a commentary on the segmentation and “canning” of space (cans being another container he frequently uses); he frequently attempts to draw attention to marginal or transitional spaces.

Hildesheim, Germany