.
Franz Erhard Walther could be the poster boy for social distancing. I first saw his work in Wild, Visionary, Spectral: New German Art at Wellington’s Shed 11 in 1986. Since the 1960s, he’s been making minimalist-looking fabric objects for gallery goers to occupy and articulate. With their openings, fastenings, and straps, they are less sculptures than activities—performance scores. His body bags regiment populations into lines, shapes, patterns, tableaux, while his wall-mounted fabric works hybridise clothing and architecture. Restricting, yet benign, and often rather cosy, his social activities suggest social structures, cataloguing permutations of independence and interdependence—like snapshots of group dynamics. But Walther’s work is never an orgy. He doesn’t press bodies together, insisting on respectful distance, equal personal space. Indeed, his works are all about getting together without touching. Now, with the pandemic, much of it looks like experimental social-distancing technology. Check out his Tate Shots video.
•