The internationally renowned sculptor Stephan Balkenhol is opening a special kind of time window for us. Part of the art family he has created gathers for a museum visit and honors the collection of Old Masters at the Museum Wiesbaden.
As at an important family celebration, the closest circle and their extended environment, including their animal companions, come together across generations to see each other again and discuss what they have seen. This creates an informal dialog between current contemporary art and its artistic predecessors. The visitors enter the resulting spatial image and become part of the shared art viewing experience. Traditional viewer relationships are broken up, set in motion and unite all participants. Balkenhol's artistic work is deeply rooted in European art history and its humanistic aspirations. At times, Balkenhol draws directly on this cultural fund, transfers it into his very own style and gives us a modern, contemporary variation of the goddess, as in the Venus de Milo, for example. His figures represent our everyday lives in a very lively way and thus create a great closeness to ourselves. Balkenhol's figures are always also ourselves.
"I enjoy looking at old masters in museums and value them as a source of inspiration. In contrast to science, in art it is often the case that you knock the old masters off their pedestals in order to assert your own new art. But I think it can also work like a relay race. You take the baton from your predecessor, carry it on and try to achieve your own 'best time'." Stephan Balkenhol
Exhibition view, photo Bernd Fickert © VG Bildkunst Bonn 2023
"My artistic work is an examination of the human condition and the world in which we humans are entrenched. This also includes history. Only with an awareness of history can the present and the future be mastered. On behalf of the exhibition visitor, my figures stand in a picture gallery, looking at art and history and trying to locate themselves." Stephan Balkenhol
November 10, 2023 to June 2, 2024
