Thomas Bayrle. I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore

Born in Berlin in 1937, Thomas Bayrle lives and works in Frankfurt. He trained as a weaver at the Werkkunstschule, Offenbach (1958–61) and soon began producing concrete poetry. He is especially interested in printing techniques, textiles and typography, and works with drawings, collages, film and computer graphics. A referent of German Pop, Bayrle has used these types of aesthetics to develop his own language for a critique of late capitalism’s way of life and the irrationality of mass culture. Since the early seventies Bayrle has produced photographic collages based on patterns of repetition and variation: he uses minute elements (mostly consumer objects) and reproduces hundreds of them to form large structures. The dialogue between micro and macro evokes the relation between social construction and the individual, and the inevitable alienation of the latter in the modern world.

Bayrle has been exhibiting since the early sixties in the most prestigious international institutions. His work is included in the collections of Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Kunstmuseum, Stuttgart; MOCA, Los Angeles; Frac Limousin, Limoges; and MACBA, Barcelona.