Helfried Hagenberg

Since the seventies at the latest, the book has played an increasingly prominent role as an artistic medium. Helfried Hagenberg (*1940 in Hannover) was one of the first artists to work with paper in a sculptural context. His conceptual works retain the essential form of the book while at the same time taking it to different dimensions. The artist reflects the interplay between form and content, and regards his work as an “eternal search that takes place between vision and meaning.” He cuts, hones, folds, deconstructs, and shapes the “wood of the book” with the most delicate of techniques and mathematical precision, creating so-called psaligraphic sculptures—sort of three-dimensional works made with scissors that portray the nature of the book. Containing various groups of works, sculptures, and collages, this extensive publication shows a different side of the book—not least through an integrated psaligraphic sculpture—in the truest sense of the word.