Stephan Balkenhol

ARTIST   INTERVIEW

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What I am trying to do is to free the figures from all illustrative meanings.

It was interesting to see you install “man with white shirt and a woven relief,” because you had shifted the column figure as if to specify the angle for the viewers that you wanted it to be seen; which is an interesting twist to the sculptural history.

"man in white shirt and a woven relief", 2007
douglas fir, wawa wood, painted
170.0 x 34.5 x 25.5 (figure) 139.7 x 98.7 x 4.5 (relief)
© Stephan Balkenhol

I didn’t want the arrangement to be too military or too ordered. The column-figure could have been anywhere, as long as the relationship between the man and abstraction is maintained. So I could have turned the figure facing the wall.
All work has different elements that are important to each piece, but in particular, I wanted to give a background to these column-figures, so I can be sure what is behind. And the vibrating tension from the sculpture and abstraction creates sound, adding another deepness and scale of imaginary volume.

When you show sculpture and relief together, how do you select the pieces?

It's a formal language… When using abstract forms, the work begins to relate art history and many artists who explored abstraction in the past. To me, they are simply 3-dimensional patterns, to which I would then create a figure to match it. My interest is to create great tension between the figure and relief, and yes, the selection is intuitively done.

So you're trying to create the whole picture first, not like randomly picking two?

Exactly.

Germany has a long history of sculpture, especially the Gothic sculpture in the south Germany and the likes. Did that influence your work?

It certainly has an influence to my work, because it is part of the culture that I was born into and therefore it is part of my visual thinking. It is very natural for me to work figuratively in a sense. Historically speaking, sculptures always had been functional in a way, to describe and to illustrate certain ideas, politics, or religion - but not only. If you look at the Gothic sculptures, Saint, Maria, Jesus or whatever, it is a piece of art; it reflects the way how the artists/craftsmen at the time saw themselves or perceived reality. So sculpture is always the kind of media that reflects artists. What I am trying to do then, is to free the figures from all illustrative meanings, and just to make it possible to show empty figure, which is then open for identification of everybody.

When I see your work, sometimes I feel like I am in a church or temple. It is very strange because your figure is not Maria or Buddha but I feel something like I am praying, maybe because I look inside of myself when I look at your work, which means praying for me. I thought it would be interesting to place your work in the church. It would be a new place to pray not only on religious terms.

It is difficult to contemplate nowadays I think because we are overwhelmed and desensitized by pictures from media or advertisement; most of them are pictures of people but they are illustrating only the consumer aspect of figure. For me those images are too eloquent. What I look for is some kind of deepness, but not with too much meaning. I don't like if there is too much message. I just want to focus on a very simple but deep figure, a silent figure, which is then much louder because of the silence.

"big head with 3 part-relief (black)", 2007
beech wood, wawa wood, painted with pedestal (pine wood)
173.0 x 65.5 x 84.0 cm (head with pedestal)
© Stephan Balkenhol

This room (Gallery 2) is very interesting because this couple is like Adam and Eve. And the “big head” looks like came out of nowhere! Did you have this background (“3-part relief (black)”) for a while? Was this used in the postcard?

I had this “3-part relief (black)” already since this summer for my show in Berlin, but I didn't manage to finish the piece that goes in front of it… In fact I made this “big head” last week, LOL

"architecture, Fellbach", 2007
wawa wood, painted
299.5 x 102.0 x 4.5 cm
© Stephan Balkenhol

When you choose the landscape, is it a place where you've visited, or is it a place in your mind?

They are places I've visited. Most of the time they are based on the photographs I took.

Are the drawings sketches for your sculpture?

Sometimes I sketch out ideas, which I will later realize into sculpture but the most of the time they are drawings for myself. I sometimes look into books, magazines and nature for subject matter. To me drawings are like visual gymnastics and an artistic exercise.

Column figure height is about the same height with you son Constantin. Does he have a significant role in your artistic process.

No, not really (LOL). Speaking of the height, I match the small figures' height with my age - now it is 50 cm and I am 50-year-old.

Is there any political meaning in the red uniform?

It cannot deny the association to military things; Germany has this village that was oppressed by the military force... The important aspect here is that what is under our uniforms or clothes is just bodies. Even the Emperor is one of us once he is naked. Basically, we are all humans and that's it.