Gregor Lau
Von der Straße für die Straße (Sonnemann Ecke Howaldtstraße), 2025
Mixed materials
Dimensions variable
Courtesy the artist
Gregor Lau (b. 1995, Karlsruhe, Germany) is currently studying at the Städelschule in Frankfurt, with a focus on sculpture, having also completed an apprenticeship as a plasterer, which informs his artistic practice. Lau’s research reflects both on the value of labour and on the materiality of space and architecture—elements that shift in significance depending on their social and economic context.
For the exhibition at Frankfurter Kunstverein, Lau has created a large-scale spatial sculpture modelled after a real location in Frankfurt: the corner of Howaldtstraße and Sonnemannstraße, in front of the European Central Bank. It’s a few square metres of pavement where, every morning, people offer and sell their labour on the informal job market.
Through his years of experience in the construction industry, Lau has witnessed the division of the workforce into two classes: employees with secure contracts and social insurance, and day labourers who, as part of a precarious workforce, are picked up daily off the street and exploited.
The street corner on Sonnemannstraße and the scenes that unfold there are visible to every passer-by—even captured in Google Street View. A frozen moment in time that maps the openly visible precariat as an integral part of the modern economic landscape. Lau prints out the view from the geolocation, thus extracting it from the digital representation of the world and reintegrating it into the physical space of his sculptural installation.
Lau’s themes and choice of materials emerge directly and consistently from the context of his investigations. The site determines the form and materiality of the work. As a sculptor, he absorbs these elements and transforms them into a work that oscillates between realism and symbolism.
Lau individually casts every paving stone in concrete. Into the surface, he incorporates elements drawn from everyday life: coins, beer bottle caps, street markings—even a footprint pressed into the surface, as a negative impression and a trace of time spent waiting. He constructs the walls using dry construction methods, coated with exterior render, adapting the exhibition space to reflect the found reality of the public realm.
Within the institutional setting of the Frankfurter Kunstverein, his installation redirects the viewer’s focus towards a familiar yet overlooked reality.
Gregor Lau (b. 1995, Karlsruhe, DE) has been studying at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste – Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main (DE) in the class of Prof. Monika Baer since 2022. Previously, he studied at the Karlsruhe Academy of Fine Arts (DE) with Prof. Marcel van Eeden, Prof. Vivian Greven, and Prof. Sophie von Hellermann, and completed an apprenticeship as a plasterer. In his artistic practice, Lau places geographical and social spaces into new contexts. The starting point for his sculptural works and installations, which often sit at the intersection of painting and sculpture, are political or historical events as well as social occurrences and structures.
Lau won the Rundgangpreis of the Städelschule in 2023 as well as a prize from the Albig Foundation. He has presented his works at venues such as Sies+Höke in Düsseldorf (DE), the Opelvillen Rüsselsheim (DE), the Museum Kurhaus, Kleve (DE), and numerous offspaces.
