Stephan Balkenhol — dans le cadre d’Un été au Havre — Le Portique centre régional d'art contemporain du Havre — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: June 29 → September 29, 2019

Stephen Balkenhol — Le Portique, Le Havre Une trentaine d’œuvres en bois du célèbre sculpteur allemand de 62 ans, qui a fait de la figure humaine le centre de son travail de... 2 - Bien Critique

Major figure of the German art scene, Stephan Balkenhol is famous for his monumental sculptures and his interventions in the public space. Replacing everyday figures with the sacred figures proper to medieval statuary, the artist from across the Rhine comments and rewrites, through his works, popular culture and ancestral work: the wood, his favorite material.

Stephan Balkenhol, Stephan Balkenhol, Composition Multicolor, 2010, 2010 Bois d’abachi peint — Relief : 156 × 200 × 5 cm sculpture : 169,5 × 27,5 × 25,5 cm © Stephan Balkenhol Courtesy of the artist

Confronting himself physically with matter, directly carving his characters in tree trunks, he delivers an eminently human work: his characters, hoisted on pedestals, look up to centuries of creation. Profusion of the faces, reinterpretation of the bodies: its production constitutes a vast forest populated with humans, whose material echoes the organic, the plants and the ground. By giving anonymous bodies and faces, Balkenhol delivers a story: the collective memory, which embraces both the history of art and the humanity.

Stephan Balkenhol, Stephan Balkenhol dans son atelier à Kassel, Allemagne, 0 © Photo de Henrik Hornung Courtesy de l’artiste

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