In June of last year I was sitting in a Café in Mitte, Berlin, watching people pass by. I observed something in a face... I can’t describe it as a picture, what I saw. It was almost like an inner face...an inner surface, like a second skin. This skin was closed. I saw it with my belly. And then I saw that ‘closed’ layer in a few other people. I asked myself if I projected this onto them or if it was ‘real’. It was like a closed wall. I recognized this closed layer from my own mother.
’Close it off, sweep it under the carpet, put something over it and a vase with pretty flowers on top.’
That’s why it resonates with me and I see it. I can only see it, because I understand it. If I didn’t know it personally, I wouldn’t see. It is like a hidden shadow; a shadow that is hidden behind a light which doesn’t shine. When I got back to my studio in Cape Town I found four wooden boards waiting under my table. They had been waiting there for almost three years. I took an axe - one of those long handle axes - and thought: What an appropriate tool for a German to draw with... and started cutting. It was a purely intuitive process. I started very gently, almost timidly, with the first board. After I warmed up, the cutting and chopping became easier. It accelerated and I was exhilarated. The piece burst into 2 pieces. With the second and third boards I went even deeper into the surface, each time right through. While I was penetrating through the third piece it struck me. I pierced through some- thing... In German I’d say “Ich habe etwas durchdrungen”. The force and desire to cut through those pieces of wood was coming from deep down, went through me and right through the material. That’s why I call them Durchdringungen.
I recognized and could relate to this layer, because I have it within me. I didn’t have to go through the fourth piece anymore. It started flowing.
The only way to show this shadow is through my own shadow.
I protect the flame. And I am carrying the torch further.
I acknowledge the past, try to see it, try to recognize it.
I open my wound, I show my wound. Something starts flowing. My creative energy flows through me and out of me...it purges out of me. Everything is flowing. I take off with both feet firm on the ground. My eyes look straight forward and nothing holds me back. I see my work as an expansion of the very space they are within.
The spatial effect stretches into another space. It carries one into another dimension. I believe that all art should do that. I do it very directly with geometric space constructions. It’s like a dream world I’m building...a spiritual reality. I can see it... but maybe it’s an illusion... or something else. It seems as if... but then it is different... stays always different. A realistic illusion. You can see it if you like but you don’t have to.
References: Joseph Beuys "Schütze die Flamme" / Anselm Kiefer "Remembering the Future"
Lars has spent the last 25 years in the examination of 3 dimensional spaces: This has been achieved through architecture, model building, sculpture and installations.
Lars was born in Germany and worked in Contemporary Architecture and collaborated in various Exhibitions including Christo and Jean-Claude’s Wrapped Reichstag Project for Berlin; one of contemporary arts most innovative projects in the mid 90’s.
The artist moved to Cape Town in 2002 and since 2010 Lars has moved away from the architectural. By combining his knowledge of materials such as wood and resin with perceptual shifts from aerials to perspectives he has formed a new artistic narrative. A major influence in Lars’s current work is his studies in mathematics and projective geometry, particularly explorations from the personal inner perspective to the geometrical infinite. Through his work, Lars gives his audience an experience of space, challenges their perceptual boundaries, and makes invisible aspects of this experience, visible. In his own words;
‘It is both logical and playful, mathematical and infinite’
Lars draws upon inspiration from the artists Kandinsky, Mondrian, Le Corbusier, Dali, Rietveld and the architectural experimentalists like the Russian Deconstructivists. The Haus-Rucker-Co and current architects like Liebeskind and Gehry are considered by the artist to be his artistic ancestors and companions. Tenguely, Beuys, Serra and Christo were concerned with ‘bending’ the space in and around us and have provided Lars with contemporary references. Comparisons can be made with South African greats; Cecil Skotnes, Lucky Sibaya, Albert Newell – all experimentalists in the use of 3 dimensional space.
“The discovery of anything new changes our perception and the way we see and experience the world we live in. Why did the aboriginal people on the continent of America not see the ships of Columbus rising on the horizon? It was apparently not within their reality. So, if I stand in a closed up old barn and I can see through the gaps of the planks the outside light, but not the rays streaming in. Only the moment I kick some dust up do the rays become visible right in front of me. This does not mean that those rays didn’t exist the moment I entered the barn. It became part of my reality the moment I kicked the dust.
"My art is about kicking up that dust”
Ausstellungen (Auswahl)
Cross-Pollination Solo Show Eclectica Contemporary, Cape Town September 2017
Weisse Schatten Solo Show ID&CO, Munich
April 2017
SAADA Cape Town Eclectica Design & Art February 2017
Verging Threshholds Group Show Eclectica Design & Art, Cape Town February 2017
Muse Montage Group Show Eclectica Design & Art, Cape Town August 2016
Aspects of Abstraction Group Show Johans Borman Fine Art, Cape Town May 2016
Abstracted Group Show EBONY, Cape Town May 2016
That Artfair
Eclectica Design & Art, Cape Town February 2016
Cape Town Art Fair 2016 Johans Borman Fine Art February 2016
Spectra Group Show
Johans Borman Fine Art, Cape Town August 2015
Cape Town Art Fair 2015 Johans Borman Fine Art February 2015
Black & White Group Show
Johans Borman Fine Art, Cape Town November 2014
Do Nothing Group Show David Krut Projects Cape Town December 2014
Zero Crossing Solo Show EBONY Cape Town September 2014
From Above And Within Solo Show TMFT, Cape Town
November 2013
