Caspar BergerIn a variety of ways the sculptor Casper Berger explores the self-portrait in three-dimensionalart. Two of his bronzes, thematising his own skin as a personal or cultural membrane between inner and outer worlds, were to be seen in “Blickachsen 8”. This year, “Blickachsen 9” shows a work dealing with the skeleton as the carrier of one’s identity. More than eight metres high, Berger’s “Ego Vivo / Self-portrait 25” presents a giant replica of his right upper arm bone as a bronze monument standing on a classical pedestal. Using a CT scanner and a 3D printer Berger made an exact copy of his bone and enlarged it. For the artist, the bone functions as a pars pro toto, a part representing the whole. The three-dimensional copy is literally an image of his inner self. Carved into the pedestal are the words “EGO VIVO”. This “I live” – delivered, no doubt, with a wink of the eye – is a comment on the logical contradiction that one’s bones are not at all a sign of life but rather of what remains after one dies. With an unexpected richness of significance Berger’s self-portrait points to a thematic of identity, life and death, as well as to the classical art of moumental sculpture and the tradition of veneration of relics.
ExponateBlickachsen 9Blickachsen 8 |
Abakanowicz, Magdalena Alquin, Nicolas Berger, Caspar Borofsky, Jonathan Cragg, Tony Dings, Nicolas Haberpointner, Alfred Hall, Nigel Klinge, Dietrich Koorida, Masayuki Kuhn, Sebastian Lieshout, Joep van Nash, David Olinet, Vincent Oppenheim, Dennis Otterness, Tom Rainaldi, Oliviero Rohrer, Stefan Rütte, Iris Le Schwickerath, Peter Sui Jianguo, Tahon, Johan Venet, Bernar Venske & Spänle, Visch, Henk |