This sculptural form, usable as an ashtray, was made through a "lost styrofoam" technique. The Vienna-based artists who fabricated it––Christoph Meier, Ute Müller, Robert Schwarz, and Lukas Stopczynski––hand carve waste styrofoam, embed the form in fireproof material, and then pour molten aluminum into the mold. The process destroys ("loses") the original styrofoam form.
The aluminum itself comes from beer cans the artists have collected at the bar installations they have erected in Los Angeles in 2015, Brussels in 2017, and Vienna in 2019 and 2022. The installation series are part of an engagement with Adolf Loos (1870-1933), the Viennese father of modernism perhaps best known for his polemics against ornamentation. The installations reinterpret Loos' American Bar in different material palettes, offering a commentary on the shifting industrial, social, and environmental conditions expressed in our built environments and, in particular, our bars.
Each sculpture is unique and engraved "XXII"
12 Oz.
2.5"x3"x3"