Turmbau zu Babel / Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel is a well-known story from the Old Testament (Genesis 11:1-9) about man’s hubris in his attempt to become godlike, which was punished with confusion. Thomas Virnich’s version of this tower is an extremely fragile structure – a cylindrical collection of architectural fragments and various objects, cast in bronze and painted.

The material alone gives it a sense of homogeneity and stability, while preserving the appearance of the original papier-mâché models. In bronze they seem weathered, as if they had been salvaged from a long sunken wreck. In this work, the artist acknowledges the cultural achievements of human history and builds on them. Doubts about man’s conceptual abilities and the permanence of his creations are, however, clearly discernible.