GALERIE BERNARD BOUCHE
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Bernd Lohaus Ohne Titel, 2007 Bronze 22 x 118 x 78cm
Bernd Lohaus was born in Dusseldorf in 1940; he has been living in Belgium since 1966. Bernd Lohaus's work is characterized by the association of sculptural shapes, of stones sometimes or of metal, but most of all of beams of Azobe wood on which you can see the passage of time; they carry bribes of sentences or words. Lohaus finds his beams near Anvers. They come from dockyards or from the harbour. They have floated on the water of the Rhine for quite a while. Each one of the beams is important. The artist doesn't intervene on them before he is sure of the way he should cut them, or not, and keeps them piled many years in his small studio. He stabilizes them in sculptures. For him, it is about going above disorder, going out of the chaos; Lohaus says: "Making a sculpture is finding a certain order".
The works of Bernd Lohaus are juxtaposed fragments through which many dialogues can begin to take shape. A dialogue between the artist and the works, when they are still pieces of wood as well as when they have become sculptures: they bring back the artist to his native environment. Another dialogue also between these rough beams and the the romanticism and poetry that we can feel out of them. A dialogue also between these sculptures, that lay on nothing else than the wall that support them and the place in which they exist.
The text on the works describes the constitutive elements of the sculpture, or contradicts them. "The sculpture, the shape, comes always first, it is above all sculpture". "When I make inscriptions, it is to accentuate a certain idea, to underline the shape".
Lohaus opposes Michel-angelo to Rodin. Michel-Angelo sees "David in the block of marble" whereas Rodin reaches the result by adding layers. Lohaus suppresses the unnecessary, saws, cuts off, reduces. But he also adds, by integrating the past to his work, and enlarges the sculptural field. An absolutely original process that distinguishes him from minimalists, Arte Povera artists, and from Beuys, that was his professor.
In the recent works of Bernd Lohaus (2001 to 2005), we discover the artist has taken a new path, related to architecture. He transforms architecture models into sculptures, and disposes them in order to create an urban space.
The works of Bernd Lohaus are juxtaposed fragments through which many dialogues can begin to take shape. A dialogue between the artist and the works, when they are still pieces of wood as well as when they have become sculptures: they bring back the artist to his native environment. Another dialogue also between these rough beams and the the romanticism and poetry that we can feel out of them. A dialogue also between these sculptures, that lay on nothing else than the wall that support them and the place in which they exist.
The text on the works describes the constitutive elements of the sculpture, or contradicts them. "The sculpture, the shape, comes always first, it is above all sculpture". "When I make inscriptions, it is to accentuate a certain idea, to underline the shape".
Lohaus opposes Michel-angelo to Rodin. Michel-Angelo sees "David in the block of marble" whereas Rodin reaches the result by adding layers. Lohaus suppresses the unnecessary, saws, cuts off, reduces. But he also adds, by integrating the past to his work, and enlarges the sculptural field. An absolutely original process that distinguishes him from minimalists, Arte Povera artists, and from Beuys, that was his professor.
In the recent works of Bernd Lohaus (2001 to 2005), we discover the artist has taken a new path, related to architecture. He transforms architecture models into sculptures, and disposes them in order to create an urban space.