Art@Site www.artatsite.com Ewerdt Hilgemann Cerberus Berlin
Artist:

Ewerdt Hilgemann

Title:

Cerberus

Year:
2000
Adress:
Bundesallee
Website:
Courageos
A column is a perfect example of strength and reliability. But this column Cerberus doesn t have much sturdiness and trustworthiness left. Each side has sharp indentations. The bumps seem to be deeper because of the visual effect of the shiny surface of the material.
This post is standing however. Still there are sharp edges, still there are flat sections. You can imagine how powerful this support was. The light color of the stainless steel is even reflecting the sunlight. This column is courageous.
I don t want to hear anything like this column would be a loser. Maybe I can even say that Cerberus by Ewerdt Hilgemann is cute. The lower side is up and curved, like the leg of a football player is doing. The top part looks as if it s bended extra downward, like a clown who s bowing after the balancing act.
By Theo, www.artatsite.com

Vertaling
Moedig
Een zuil is een toonbeeld van stevigheid en betrouwbaarheid. Maar deze zuil Cerberus heeft niet veel meer van deze kracht en degelijkheid. Aan elke kant zitten forse deuken. De deuken lijken n g dieper te zijn vanwege het visuele effect van het glimmende materiaal.
Toch staat deze kolom. Er zijn nog steeds scherpe hoeken, er zijn nog steeds vlakke delen. Je kunt je voorstellen hoe sterk deze pilaar is geweest. De lichte kleur van het edelstaal weerkaatst zelfs het zonlicht. Deze zuil is moedig.
Ik wil er niets over horen dat deze zuil een mislukkeling zou zijn. Misschien mag ik zelfs zeggen dat Cerberus van Ewerdt Hilgemann guitig is. Het onderste vlak is omhoog gekruld zoals een voetballer met zijn been doet. De bovenkant lijkt extra neerwaarts gebogen zoals een clown die buigt na de balanceer act.
Door Theo, www.artatsite.com

www.bildhauerei-in-berlin.de:
Auf rechteckigem Betonstandsockel mit integrierter Beleuchtung steht die abstrakte Plastik aus Stahl, ein hochkant plazierter Rechteckkubus, dessen Fl chen unregelm ig eingeknickt sind (Susanne K hler, J rg Kuhn).
Manchmal reicht es schon, ein bisschen Luft rauszulassen, und schon sieht die Welt ganz anders aus. F r den in den Niederlanden lebenden Deutschen Ewerdt Hilgemann (Jahrgang 1938) ver nderte diese Erkenntnis sein K nstlerleben. Seit den 80er Jahren pumpt er so aus gl nzenden Edelstahlkuben Luftvolumen in verschiedenen Gr en ab, was diese auf dynamischste Weise in sich zusammensacken l sst (BiB nach Wolfgang Weise, Marc Wellmann) translation
Rectangular concrete base with built-in lighting is a abstract sculpture out of steel, a vertically-placed rectangle cube, whose surfaces are irregular kinked (Susanne K hler, J rg Kuhn).
Sometimes all it takes is a little bit of air out, and the world looks very different. While living in The Netherlands, the German Ewerdt Hilgemann (born 1938) changed his live as an artist. Since the 80s, he pumped out of shiny stainless, air stahlkuben volume in different sizes, which makes it going down in the most dynamic way (BiB by Wolfgang way, Marc Wellmann).

www.gallery-neher.com:
Ewerdt Hilgemann s sculptural method is spectacular, and anyone who has once witnessed such a dramatic spectacle will confirm this. At the beginning of this process is a carefully worked and welded geometric figure of stable stainless steel in this case a cube, the basic form in Hilgemann s sculptural work. Connected to a vacuum pump, the air is now withdrawn slowly from the hollow body. It takes a bit of time, but the surfaces increasingly yield and collapse, groaning and moaning. The side edges give way and the immaculate sculpture folds and distorts in a continuing metamorphosis.
What still appeared to be the expression of a systematic and constructive artistic attitude is subject to a powerful dynamic due to the effects of the elementary forces of nature, which are inscribed deeply into the sculptural body. Destruction and creation, strict construction and coincidence, rational planning and the free play of physical forces unite in works like these.
For me , according to the artist, real art, old or new, is always a combination of intellect and emotion. Art must have an irrational quality, however rational the methods used to originate them might be. www.hilgemann.art:
Elementary research has from the beginning characterized Hilgemann s work. After experiments in the sixties with subtle, white wooden wall pieces, catching light, he turned into a conceptual sculptor, using natural stone, as well as steel in series of works. In 1980 he introduced randomness and natural powers beyond his control into his working method. Much to his surprise, he found that also the unpredictable is subject to natural laws, to which he soon could anticipate.
Is there anything softer than air, more vital for human beings, breathing in and out? Yet, this same air is capable of pressing, folding large steel containers, once the air is being evacuated. That force has become Hilgemann s tool.

www.artzuid.nl:
Ewerdt Hilgemann is a German sculptor living in the Netherlands, he makes wall reliefs, installations and sculptures. After studying briefly at the Westf lische Wilhelms-Universit t in M nster, he went to the Werkkunstschule in Saarbr cken.
The 1980s were a turning point. Hilgemann made his first photographic work, followed by a series of sawn granite boulders: Boulder with 3 Segments (90 ). He uses the coincidence and the power of natural elements. His implosion sculptures are created by gradually sucking air from large shapes (often cubes) of stainless steel with a pump. Cubes, square columns and pyramids remain his most used shapes later on.

www.wikipedia.org:
Ewerdt Hilgemann (Born in Witten, February 21, 1938) is a German artist, currently living and working in The Netherlands.
Hilgemann's bodies of work from the 1960s focused on wall pieces, consisting of wooden dowels, as well as serial and minimalistic installations ("Space Structures") out of large resin or steel tubes. In the 1970s, reliefs and mostly wooden abstract geometrical sculptures followed, based on grids as well as the cube. The 1980s meant a change in thinking, when Hilgemann made his first photographic work Random Sculptures (for herman de vries), followed by a series of granite boulders e.g. referencing to the (maximum) cube that can fit inside a sphere by cutting away what was needed to reveal the cube, yet showing all parts of the process. In 1982, for the first time with an audience, he rolled a perfectly polished marble cube (150x150x150 cm) down hill in the famous Carrara quarry, where Michelangelo already got his marble from. The result was a scratched and battered piece, but it still remained recognisable as a cube! "Rolling Cube 1982".
Likewise, in 1983 he brought two perfectly polished spheres to an controlled explosion, resulting in fractured pieces carefully accounted for (3 parts for the white Carrara marble, 9 parts for the dark Bardiglio marble). The same year, during sculpture symposium East-West Forum in Dordrecht, Netherlands he made his first welded steel cube, which he threw down from the rooftop of an abandoned factory. These sculptures and their planned destruction depend to a large extent on random circumstances. However, these can also be premeditated by stipulating their conditions. According to the artist, this equally is the case with his so-called "Implosion Sculptures", which Hilgemann started in 1984 and that are still going on. The perfectly welded stainless steel geometrical shapes are vacuumed by a pump (or by means of water), causing the body to slowly give way to the outside pressure, resulting in a new form, yet leaving a visual reference to the original. The most used shapes are cubes, square columns and pyramids.