STEPHAN BALKENHOL

This monumental exhibition catalog presents an inspiring overview of the work of Stephan Balkenhol, one of the trail-blazing German sculptors of the last two decades. The center of Balkenhol s work is the human form; he gouges his figures out of tree trunks and paints them, leaving behind traces of the tools, branch notches and splits in the wood. The resulting figures seem both disturbingly personal and anonymous, ordinary people posed in front of painted backdrops, embracing others in awkward pas de deux, with echoes of Teutonic cuckoo-clock kitsch. I don't want talkative, expressive figures, which is why I seek an open expression from out of which all states are possible, says Balkenhol . The book includes the artist's less-known animal figures, and drawings and photographs. Essays by Matthias Winzen and Harriet Zilch.