Stephan Balkenhol New Works Deweer Art Gallery was Stephan Balkenhol's first gallery abroad and has documented his evolution in several shows. After a first appearance in the group-show "Neue Deutsche Skulptur" in 1986, Stephan Balkenhol was introduced one year later with a solo-show. His most recent exhibition at the gallery was in 2005. The gallery was a partner in a lot of Balkenhol's international projects, such as his exhibition at the Smithsonian Institution (US) in 1995, a sculptural ensemble placed on the Rembrandt Square in Leiden (NL) in 2005, another ensemble for the Veemarkt in Kortrijk (BE) in the same year, his project for the Beaufort Triennial in 2006 and recently his outdoor show in the sculptural program of the Museo Parco Archeologico di Scolacio in Catanzaro (IT). For this show - his eighth solo-show at Deweer Art Gallery, celebrating 20 years of collaboration - Stephan Balkenhol will present new wood sculptures, wood reliefs and drawings, and a lithography made for the occasion. Some of the pieces will demonstrate the artist's latest sculptural experiments, both in form and concept. Balkenhol's wooden sculptures spurn the classical ideals of beauty and present us with the nondescript everyday man or woman. His works have affinities to the wood carving tradition of the Middle Ages and northern renaissance and the "naive" folk art of Poland and eastern Europe, yet there is more whimsy than Gothic in his forms. As Neal Benezra said in catalogue text of Balkenhol's exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in 1995: "He does not seek to recapture the heroic glory of bygone periods but rather demonumentalizes the figurative statue by thrusting the most unremarkable men and women onto pedestals historically reserved for heroes and heroines." Balkenhol avoids creating a narrative or leading to an allegorical interpretation. His figures are devoid of specific associations. The figures are either smaller than life or larger than life, but they are never quite human size. Balkenhol doesn't want to fool you, he wants to make sure you know it's a sculpture. He has resuscitated the figurative sculpture from what was a burdensome tradition and has given it his own distinctive approach. In the catalogue on Balkenhol's first solo show at Deweer Art Gallery in 1987, Jo Coucke wrote: "The sculptures of Stephan Balkenhol have a surprising quality. Is it because they gaze without seeing? Or because their posture is so timeless? They are present, but they never impose themselves. They are statues in the most solemn sense of the word. The artist has deliberately excluded emotion from their gesture and posture, so they could have an inner psychological life. Their appearance is characterised by classic, almost Egyptian features. "What I find interesting is to use the pretext of making a figure, a head - that is, first, to state the theme - to make something that is concentrated and closed, that does not expect any applause from its environment, but that is present without making any claims on the spectator... I am concerned with the resistance offered to me by the theme and the material', says the sculptor. Whether it is a figure of a lion, an equestrian statue, a male or a female figure, in the round or in relief inside half a tree trunk, Stephan Balkenhol always and explicitly offers the simultaneity of (sculptural) object value and (pictorial) representational value. The sculpture's object value is the result of material reality, in which a train of events has led to its creation, while the representational value is an homage to the unattainable idea. In Balkenhol's oeuvre, iconography is not a direct function of meaning. In fact, it is mainly a function of sculpture. And that is essential to this oeuvre. These sculptures do not have a subservient function. They do not convey a message, nor do they personify anything: they are sufficient onto themselves." At his very first exhibition in 1987, when these words were written, and on every occasion after that, Balkenhol's originality and inventiveness have been surprising. Stephan Balkenhol was born in 1957 in Fritzlar / Hessen (Germany) and lives in Karlsruhe (Germany) and Meisenthal (France). Exhibition 11 November - 16 December 2007 Gallery hours Wed/Thu, Sat/Sun 2 - 6 pm, Fri 10 am - 6 pm, and by appointment Deweer Art Gallery Tiegemstraat 6A B-8553 Otegem (Belgium) Telephone +32 56 644 893 Fax +32 56 647 685 Email info@deweerartgallery.com www.deweerartgallery.com |
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