Winfried Baumann: Cathedrals for Garbage

With his artistic works, the sculptor Winfried Baumann (* 1956) evokes questions of social responsibility and the perception of contemporary social forms. His subjects are highly topical both as regards content with respect to social and urban-planning visions, and also formally as they cross the borders between fine art and applied design. For over thirty years the sculptor Winfried Baumann has focused his attention in the ecological problems which are increasingly advancing to become a question of survival for civilised society. Refuse, slag from the burning of refuse, waste oil and other waste products from our consumer society are materials which he has been using since the mid-1980s for his three-dimensional works and large-scale installations. In his very extensive group of works Cathedrals Winfried Baumann examines, for example, waste-disposal plants for large urban spaces, with the protection and marking of nuclear contaminated sites, waste-disposal facilities for large urban spaces and intermediate urban spaces and with the subject of urban mining.