"My work over the past years has been a series of experiments and inquiries into social and cultural patterns. It typically took the form of practices familiar to us from outside the art world (i.e. workshops, hobby clubs, therapeutic techniques). After having worked with what are considered everyday materials and situations for some time and after realizing that this was often interpreted as a form of realism (in disregard of the highly theatrical nature of what is referenced as reality) I decided to go the other direction, towards theatricality (which is real). I have since been working with television, comedy and cartoons, intentionally applying their methods awkwardly and in ill-fitting contexts. The resulting work is situated in the middle grounds between a variety of conventionally assumed oppositions (i.e. entertainment and high art, narrative and abstraction) thus remaining in a state of productive undecideability. "Smoke Stack" is to be seen in this context: a spectacular, even colorful, autonomous sculpture which at the same time is too deadpan to be entertaining. A serious comedic situation that's not a joke (but perhaps still funny)."

Selected Bibliography

Ackermann, Franz. "Olav Westphalen". Texte zur Kunst, May, 1995.

Baker, Kenneth. "Is small beautiful?" San Francisco Chronicle, April, 1997.

Cotter, Holland. "Sampling". The New York Times, July 11, 1999.

Germer, Stefan. "Daß die Sprache der Erfahrung überlegen ist...," BE Magazin, Berlin, October, 1994.