M HKA Ensembles

From 1973 on, Schleber made compositions with geometric objects. For example, he added spheres to objects that can be found in every household, such as a knife, a fork or a teapot. In addition, Schleber made sculptures that had a minimalistic look and that were entirely made up of spheres of the same size. The previously described objects' playfulness is still present here, although these works seem to have originated much more out of a certain systematic. Schleber also applies the spheres to flat surfaces, often quadrangular ones, sometimes surfaces with geometric recesses. With his use of colour, he refers to abstract expressionist artists Barnett Newman (1905-1970) and Mark Rothko (1903-1970). The spheres cause extra tension in the colour because they reflect the light in different ways. Interestingly, Schleber distances himself from abstract expressionism, without banning painting as such. He sticks to the use of colour, yet replaces expression with systematics. Also, by giving the canvas a certain shape too, it changes from mere painting and support into a self-contained object.

Around 1975, letters and language start to play an important role in Schleber's work. First of all, there are the license plates he collects. In his four-part book Autogram Generator (1976), Schleber wrote out all letter combinations that were possible in Germany at that time. In addition, the book contained Polaroids of the words he had encountered on license plates. (Harald Szeeman selected the work in 1977 for documenta 6. Schleber also included these Polaroids in Autograms, which consists of selections of Polaroids of license plates that together form sentences. From the moment Schleber started using license plates, letters were more likely to appear in his assemblages: he seemed to become more aware of language and meaning. This is also evident in the visual poems  he begins to make around 1975. He calls them Serial Typos, because the idea arose while making a typing error. While typing a text, some letters were printed on top of each other, and Schleber got fascinated by the accumulation of words that could arise in this way. So on the one hand, there's a strict minimalist approach; on the other hand, the playful element of a typing error.

- Julia Mullié