MOTU Christian Steyrl

Motu Christian Steyrl is an Austrian conceptual artist whose work has occupied a distinctive, experimental position within contemporary art since the early 2000s. Under the artist name Motu, he has developed a multifaceted body of work that encompasses painting, sculpture, installation, video, performance and architectural interventions. His projects revolve around transformation, the search for traces, intervention and the revelation of hidden structures – often employing a striking, almost archaeological visual language.

He is particularly well known for his ongoing series ‘motu is digging your world’, in which the motif of digging, opening up and uncovering takes centre stage as an artistic act. Alongside this, he creates extensive bodies of work such as ‘motuland’, ‘the achromatic tracks’, ‘gebiete’ and numerous conceptual machines, readymades and mixed-media works. Motu’s projects oscillate between poetic abstraction and precise conceptual frameworks; they combine physical action with intellectual cartography.

Since the 2000s, Motu has presented his work in a variety of formats – ranging from exhibitions and performances to site-specific installations. His work is characterised by a consistent exploration of central themes: space, materiality, process and the question of how art intervenes in perception and the environment.