Works

Fulcrum

Fulcrum 10

On the lawn between the Siamese Temple and the pond "Fulcrum", the most massive sculpture of "Blickachsen 3/ Axes of View 3", rises over fifteen meters up into the air. The sculpture may unfold itself freely into its monolithic height, embedded in the rich green of the grass and the shrubs and trees in appropriate distance. Secured by several foundations, steel blocks and sheets of different height and breadth meet in a diagonal range in the air, creating with their intersections an extensive inner space. Even higher and steeper masts rise up into the air like antennas. In spite of its balanced static arrangement, the whole steel construction seem like a metal sheaf in motion, in its diagonal order adjusting itself to changing force fields depending on its location: a work in motion, a machine under voltage.

The potential of linkage and force, matter and energy, relates the sculpture to the avant-garde of constructivism. "Fulcrum" is a rearing architectural monument, freed from mass and gravitation, and with its "kinetic" rhythm permeating the airspace. Hence, it is far from being a fragile "house of cards", but on the contrary, the artistically folded free construction of a "building site", where a flaring fulcrum has been installed.

The grounding is supplemented by the physical exploration of the surrounding sphere and the overcoming of material limitations. The "heliotropic" aspect is emphasized impressively by the colour yellow. Not the glowing red or orange common among the steel giants in contemporary art, but the brilliant colouring of the sun itself, tints the steel limbs of a vital "organism". The weight and the colour of the earth are vanishing in favour of the colour of the sky, of fire and gold. Whereas in the myth, yellow flowers grow above treasures hidden in the earth, steely flashes of lightning have come together here in order to align for the conquest of the universe.

Artist John Henry
Year2001
Typesteel, painted
Dimensions1550 x 1420 x 650 cm
Shown atBlickachsen 3, Bad Homburg

Works by John Henry

Blickachsen 3