Wolfgang Laib figured out that, for some reason, people will pay good money for a mason jar filled with pollen. 

Before Wolfgang Laib was a conceptual artist, he was a German academic. His absolutely thrilling dissertation on the hygiene of drinking water provided him with little satisfaction, so Laib left the medical profession and turned to art and Eastern philosophy. 

Laib currently uses principles of Zen Buddhism and Taoism to ground his creative process. His chosen materials almost make it seem like he’s whipping up a gourmet snack-- milk, pollen, beeswax, rice. Take that to New York and you’ve got yourself the premise for an exclusive (and expensive) dining experience. Laib also uses marble, which is of course considerably less edible, but just as pricey. 

According to Laib, his creative process is a spiritual experience that tends to focus on contemplation and repetition. Considering that for the last THREE DECADES Laib has painstakingly gathered mass amounts of hazelnut, dandelion, and pine pollen from the fields around his home, we’d say that he’s pretty damn good at repetition. But according to Laib, neither the process of collecting the pollen or the way in which it is presented is the artwork-- the pollen itself is the art. On that note, I’d like to mention that collectors flock to Laib to buy jars full of his pollen/art. Let me repeat: people pay hefty chunks of dough for a jar of plant sperm. All in the name of art, I suppose.

Laib is also known for creating cavernous chambers, built using only massive quantities of beeswax and also for his sanded marble slabs filled with milk. The use of these two materials definitely evokes the Bible’s fave image of a “land flowing with milk and honey.” We dig the aesthetic. Very holistic and trendy.