Filled with ironic deadpan, and playful humor, Balkenhol's painted wood figures are serenely posed and sparsely depicted sculptures. Innocently charming, they reveal understated, offbeat sensibilities due to variations in scale, siting, color, and an unsettling, psychologically vacant mood. Featured in this 10 year survey of his work are 30 sculptures, including Balkenhol's best known piece, 57 Penguins, and a group of large-scale chalkboard drawings. "As he ranges from the mundane to the political, and from the diminutive to the monumental, Balkenhol, like Picasso before him, demonstrates the continuing and seemingly limitless potential of figurative sculpture in the late twentieth century." Neal Benezra The artist: Stephan Balkenhol, born 1957 in Fritzlar (Germany). Solo and group exhibitions since 1983 such as Skulptur Projekte in Münster 1987 and the 1988 BiNationale. Lives and works in Karlsruhe and Meisenthal.
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