Michael Sailstorfer's Reibungsverlust am Arbeitsplatz (Friction Loss at the Workplace) finds Grieder Contemporary presenting its first solo exhibition of 2014 in its new premises in Zurich's Löwenbräukunst-Areal art complex at Limmatstrasse 256. Meanwhile, the Thomas Kiesewetter exhibition titled Kleine Skulpturen und Zeichnungen featuring small sculptures and drawings is being extended until 15 February 2014 and can be viewed at Mühlebachstrasse 28 by prior arrangement.

Michael Sailstorfer's outstanding new works Reibungsverlust am Arbeitsplatz (Friction Loss at the Workplace), Raketenbaum (Rocket Tree) and Antiherbst (Anti-Autumn) occupy the transition points between conceptual art, Fluxus and Land Art.

Created especially for this exhibition, the sculpture Reibungsverlust am Arbeitsplatz consists of a spaceconsuming mill wheel fed constantly from the body of water situated beneath it. What it is powering is not a millstone, nor factory machinery, but – by way of symbolising industrialisation – a car tyre which is continuously being abraded by the friction.

The video installation Raketenbaum is also a work with destructive tendencies which shows a tree being projected violently into the air, the motive lying not so much in a desire to clear the land, but in the freeing of energy – it represents the alteration of a natural state by the intervention of the artist.

Futile work à la Sisyphus is what characterises the series of photographic images in Antiherbst created for the exhibition EMSCHERKUNST.2013. This features a tree singled out by Sailstorfer in the Rheindeich area near Duisburg. In a kind of extended performance installation, as its leaves started falling in the autumn of 2012 he began reversing the process by reattaching the leaves, now coloured green, on the tree. The work was captured on video and in still images, and post-produced to erase any sign of man or machinery. This skilfully manipulated documentary work results in the tree changing as if by magic in front of our eyes. Surrounded by the naturally changing landscape, the chosen tree appears more artificial with each succeeding photo, and curiously lost in its environment.

Michael Sailstorfer's new works find him breaking reality down and prising idylls open. Taking obvious enjoyment in sowing confusion, he creates startlingly unconventional visual universes and turns our gaze and our attention to the everyday absurdities of human activity.

Michael Sailstorfer (*1979) lives and works in Berlin. His works have been seen at venues including MoMA PS1, New York; the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; S.M.A.K, Ghent; and the kestnergesellschaft, Hanover.