The digitalization at CGAC of some pieces of modern art took place on November 18-22, 2002.

Photographs of some pieces of art selected at CGAC (first and second pieces of art authored by XAVIER TOUBES, third one by STEPHAN BALKENHOL.

STEPHAN BALKENHOL

Stephan Balkenhol was born in Fritzlar (Germany) in 1957. He lives and
works in Germany and France, in Karlsruhe and Meisenthal respectively.
From 1976 in advance he attended the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste in
Hamburg, directed by Ulrich Rückriem, and in 1980 would become Ruckriemís
studio assistant. In 1983 he received a grant awarded by the Karl
Schmidt-Rottluff F^rderungstiftung Foundation. Shortly afterwards he
began his teaching career at the Hochschule fur Bildende Kunste in
Hamburg, a practice he would continue at the Hochschule in Francfort. In
1992 he attained a professorship at the Akademie fur Bildende Kunste in
Karlsruhe.
Some critics stress these two basic elements in the definition of the
artistís trajectory ñ his choice of the Hamburg art school - respected at
that moment for its emphasis on Minimalism - and his privileged
relationship with Ruckriem, whose oeuvre was also inscribed in the
Minimalist trend and who acted as a very exacting teacher, encouraging
his pupils to develop a more rigorous spirit of research of all concepts
related to sculptural creation. The sculptor himself confesses in his
personal notes that ìÖit was very good for me to be taught by artists
who, like Ruckriem, do not work figuratively. In such situations you ask
yourself various important questions.î
Perhaps by then Balkenholís spirit was already endowed with the
specific spark characteristic of certain inventors (artists or
scientists) who interest themselves in those slight incongruities which
open on to a huge field of research, fascinating to scholars and laymen
alike, inventors who are not usually understood for what they are truly
worth or for what they seek. Be that as it may, during these years
Balkenhol acquired or developed an open selective attitude towards art,
permanently inquisitive and opposed to the most ordinary Conceptual and
Minimal practices. Balkenholís position was characterised by his
preference for industrial materials, his abandonment of human
representation and his appraisal of the creative processes that
obliterate the intentions governing the work. However, the construction
of this attitude does not preclude the lessons of Minimalism.
At a round table debate Stephan attended in 1992 he declared ìIn some
sculptures, some mises en scËne, I prefer not to develop certain
possibilities, not to execute them, to deliberately exclude them. This
may sound inscrutable, you may consider it too empty, too detached from
life. Perhaps it is really due to my artistic training, which often leads
me to think that less is more. In my view I leave it aside, in the
abstract, as a possibility, yet I donít wish to formulate itÖî.
He is fully aware that by choosing the human figure as the core of his
work he is moving on slippery ground: ìÖthis involves a certain risk,
because there are many misunderstandings, something like applause by
those who should not really applaud. Many people believe they understand
my works, they find them beautiful and marvellous because they are
hand-made and are not abstract. I donít want to change my art because
some people donít understand it. I try to make things as clear as
possible, and can do no more. I donít believe that political art is the
only way of changing a political situation. If you make truly good
sculptures they will always have a political component.

At a very early stage Balkenhol set out on a specific course, choosing
the figure as his central theme, either animal or human, alone or in a
group, always in connection with the space surrounding it, regardless of
the emptiness or architectural volume it usually interacts with. The game
is one of interrogations, and being a game it incorporates playful and
didactic features.
The artist queries what we know or believe we now about perspective
and spatial relations, but also what transcends these questions, without
succumbing to the anecdotal regarding his characters: ìFirst of all I
wanted to discover what was possible. But I soon developed an interest in
a type of sculpture/figure which would not act as a medium for a message
outside of the figure; in other words, not a figure representing someone
special or presenting a certain action, but a figure which was pure and
simply a ëfigureí.î By doing so he was not merely interested in
speculation for the sake of speculation: ìI donít think that the
speculative aspect is that important, whether it is fashionable or not.
What is crucial is how you attain it, your experience of it.î

Stephan Balkenholís figures, whether they be animal or human,
sculptures stemming from the commonplace or from our fantasies, confront
our imagination. They are neither portraits nor icons, they are not
ghosts. Or they are all these things at the same time. They do not have a
precise meaning. They remain impassive, witnesses of the artistís
intention at the time of their genesis.

XAVIER TOUBES

Xavier Toubes was born in 1947 in A Coruña, Spain. Professor, Ceramics
(1999). Goldsmith's College University of London, 1977; MFA, New York
State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. Taught: University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1983-1991. Founder-Artistic Director,
European Ceramics Work Centre in the Netherlands, 1991-1999. Exhibits:
U.S.A.; Europe; Asia. Awards: Ministry of Culture, Spain, 1983; National
Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 1986; North Carolina Arts Council 1986
Artist Fellowship; Southern Center for Contemporary Art Individual Artist
Fellowship, 1988.

"Xavier Toubes´s relationship with art is very clear and straightforward.
However, it is so difficult to explain in an age in which the creative
process can not justify itself and artists are forced to find excuses and
objectives in contemporary social and political networks; whoever
searches for them must do so with the tenacious wisdom expressed in
Toubes´s ceramic heads.

Toubes has placed himself ?as a worker who knows of the hidden joy in
transforming matter into spirit? in a world in which space and time are
not totally of the present but also of the past and of the future, of the
dead and of the unborn. Perhaps this is why he never falls into the
veneration of what has already been ?a path into ineptitude and inertia?
not does he permit himself that superstition of the future which is no
more than the vanity of the present. Toubes is as opposed to the
idolatrous traditionalism of the past as he is to the brutal and abstract
progressivism of those who, in wishing to open the doors of the future,
are merely compounding the mistakes and short-sightedness of their
fictitious present. Toubes´s friendship with the dead of all ages and his
loyalty to them is perhaps the best clue to his instinctive success in
working with clay like a poet, with freedom and universal reason."

from Teresa Barro. Matter and Spirit. Extracted from the catalogue
International Ceramic Art, 1996