DITTRICH & SCHLECHTRIEM is pleased to present GROUNDED, the first solo exhibition by DANIEL HÖLZL (b. 1994 in Schwaz, Austria; lives and works in Berlin). We previously introduced Hölzl during Gallery Weekend Discoveries* 2021 with installations and architectural interventions on the gallery’s exterior titled BAIT and AUFZUG.

With GROUNDED, the artist presents an immersive and architectural installation that extends across the entire gallery space. In the entrance area, the wingless skeleton of a model DA42-VI aircraft is installed nose-down, suspended diagonally from the ceiling. Titled END-OF-LIFE cycle one, the piece points to the descent of the downstairs gallery space. A sprawling floor installation, END-OF-LIFE cycle two, that is composed of 100 percent recycled carbon fiber and paraffin wax covers the exhibition floor; it is a fragmentary to-scale visual transfer of the decommissioned runway at Tempelhof airport, Berlin. A series of small-to-large-format paintings made of the same material, detailing industrial design and aircraft life cycles, hang on the wall, some placed proportionally to resemble airplane windows and others matching the scale of mechanical objects within the space. These themes are reflected in the sculpture titled END-OF-LIFE cycle four, which consists of a wax landing gear and three aircraft tires from an Airbus A300 and a fourth tire in the form of an ephemeral paraffin sculpture that is slowly melting away throughout the course of the exhibition.

Daniel Hölzl’s debut solo exhibition, is permeated with carbon and wax, crucial substances in the structure and operations of human technologies such as aviation…These materials find their way into Hölzl’s works through a series of wax paintings on carbon fiber, ready-made components, and sculptural parts, all of which are in some way extracted from the aviation industry and connected to notions of being grounded.

GROUNDED is not just the presentation of a series of works by an artist, but the creation of a unified yet complex world made up of substances, materials, and forms that reflect the conceptual, historical, and social concerns guiding the artist’s research and practice. By reconstituting the entire gallery as an “aviatorial space,” Hölzl establishes a setting for probing reflections on the connections between nature, science, and industrialization through the overlapping history of aviation technologies and the recently renewed European legacy of war and conflict, highlighting the integral role of petroleum.

While possessing abstract qualities associated with formalism, GROUNDED points to aviation’s dangers and limitations, rendering its existing characteristics like petroleum dependency and utilization in permanent wars around the world as already outmoded, grotesque, and nostalgic.

We must ask ourselves: What kinds of materials, forms, and sources of energy can significantly enhance our aviatorial abilities while having the least impact on the environment? Can we essentially transition from capitalism to a post-oil economy? What roles can innovation and automation play in these transitions? And what will be grounded in the future?

The above is an excerpt from the essay contributed by Mohammad Salemy to the catalogue to be published on the occasion of the exhibition. It will be available at the gallery and from our online shop this July.