Artist Registry
The White Columns Curated Artist Registry is an online platform for emerging and under-recognized artists to share images and information about their respective practices. The Registry seeks to create a context for artists who have yet to benefit from wider critical, curatorial or commercial support. To be eligible, artists cannot be affiliated with a commercial gallery in New York City.
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STATEMENT OF WORK
ARTIST STATEMENT
I choose a moment in time and let the sculpture tell its story.
The small human figures I have been working on are bodies I know, scenes I remember or imagine, that have touched and influenced my life. Working on these delicate sculptures - which are made of simple wire, tape, glue and (deliberately selected) newspaper clippings from NYT and ZEIT - is a slow process. Shaping the figure and tenderly tracing the nuances of this person's body and posture opens up new spaces of deep understanding and empathy for their story, for the fragility of human existence and its resilience.
Very personal works are created in which I deal with a part of my history, with my family or with scenes I envision – while transferring these personal stories into sculptures that, in their intriguing vividness, tell of complex human conditions such as exhaustion, withdrawal, solitude or tense concentration, of a life-defining step, a moment of weightlessness or calm clarity.
Some thoughts about MATERIAL
It has always been important for me to work as much as possible with material that exists anyway (discarded cardboard, wrapping paper, newspaper), that provides a texture and is marked by the traces of its previous life. I have worked on newsprint for years (even drawing the pictures for one of the picture books I illustrated entirely on primed newspaper pages) - and I continue to love playing with the words/sentences the selected articles provide.
German and American newspapers, ZEIT and NYT, reflected my existence in the two cultures, my confrontation with events and perspectives in both countries, my connection with both languages and at the same time the constant shifting between the two homes. The exploration of past and present is deeply rooted in the scenes and in the themes I express with my sculptures. The newsprint is also an important factor here - the choice of articles, of words (that relate to the person/scene) plays out in the context of the tension between then and now.
The technique I have developed gives the human figures both a fragile lightness and an amazingly strong presence. I am fascinated by the frailty of the delicate sculptures, their (possibly limited) lifespan, which also raises questions about my age, my own finitude.
instagram.com/angelakehlenbeck