With HYLE, Kunstraum Dornbirn presents the first institutional solo exhibition in Austria by Michail Pirgelis. For the historic assembly hall, Pirgelis–born in Essen in 1976, raised in Greece, and now based in Cologne–has developed a large-scale installation. Here, monumental works are brought into dialogue with the unique spatial conditions of the venue—an arrangement that can simultaneously be read as a statement regarding the very concept of sculpture. HYLE places the question of sculpture's essence at its centre, exploring material, form, and the process of their fusion.

Hyle (ὕλη), the Greek word for matter and raw material, denotes the as yet unformed, shapeless mass. In Aristotle’s philosophy, the term reveals its full philosophical depth: hyle is always conceived in relation to morphe (μορφή), shape, form, appearance. Matter and form are mutually dependent; neither exists without the other. It is only within this relationship that hyle becomes the principle of form-taking, the…