(Fritzlar 1957–lives and works i.a. in Karlsruhe)

Laocoön. 2016.

Bronze, patinated and painted.

On the underside with the incised signature, dating and numbering: St. Balkenhol 2016-20/24-.

35 × 56 × 35.2 cm.

Provenance:
- Artist's studio.
- Private collection Belgium.

Literature: Galerie Löhrl, Mönchengladbach: Stephan Balkenhol. Werkverzeichnis der Bronze-Editionen 1992-2019. Mönchengladbach 2019, no. 43 (colour ill.).

German art professor Stephan Balkenhol is one of the most important and popular sculptors in contemporary art. His often roughly crafted and pithy male and female figures or animals which the artist hews with a chisel from mighty logs, or makes from bronze and paints in colour, are free of pathos, pain, suffering, joy and desire. The seemingly inconspicuous and unmistakable sculptures and reliefs tell nothing, reveal nothing of themselves, remain strangely absent, elusive, enigmatic and fictitious. They are ordinary and yet unique, they leave their mark on public space, and are admired in important exhibitions in museums. Balkenhol sees the special in the ordinary and represents more normality with his work than any other contemporary artist.

In the bronze sculpture "Laocoön" presented here, the artist depicts his favourite iconic figure, the man in a white shirt and black trousers. Although depicting the priest and his two sons in a death struggle against two serpents, in which the three men lose their lives, Balkenhol shows the three figures without clear emotions, seemingly staring into the void, and imposes no particular characteristics on them. Stephan Balkenhol has the courage to reinvent figuration as a subject of contemporary sculpture.